Signal peptidase functions to cleave signal peptides from preproteins at the cell membrane. It has a substrate specificity for small uncharged residues at ؊1 (P1) and aliphatic residues at the ؊3 (P3) position. Previously, we have reported that certain alterations of the Ile-144 and Ile-86 residues in Escherichia coli signal peptidase I (SPase) can change the specificity such that signal peptidase is able to cleave pro-OmpA nuclease A in vitro after phenylalanine or asparagine residues at the ؊1 position (Karla, Proteins destined for secretion are synthesized in a precursor form with an amino-terminal extension peptide that targets the exported protein to the Sec machinery (1) or the Tat machinery (2) in bacteria. During the export process, the signal peptide is cleaved from the precursor protein by a signal peptidase that is embedded in the plasma membrane.AIn Escherichia coli, signal peptidase (SPase I) 2 consists of a single polypeptide chain of 37 kDa (3). This enzyme spans the membrane twice with a small cytoplasmic segment (residues 29 -58) and a large carboxyl-terminal catalytic domain located in the periplasm (residues 77-323) (4 -6). Catalysis by SPase I is carried out by a Ser-Lys dyad (7-10). In the case of the E. coli SPase I, Ser-90 is the nucleophilic residue that attacks the scissile bond of the precursor substrate and lysine 145 is the general base that deprotonates the serine residue (for review, see Ref. 11). A critical serine and lysine residue is also present in SPases from other species of bacteria (12), and members of the signal peptidase I family in mitochondria (13).With the exception of the mitochondrial inner membrane peptidase I (Imp1), all type I signal peptidases carry out processing with a specificity for small aliphatic residues at the Ϫ1 (P1) and Ϫ3 (P3) positions (11). Alanine is usually the preferred amino acid residue at the Ϫ1 and Ϫ3 positions and results in the frequently observed "Ala-X-Ala" motif for signal peptide cleavage (14 -16). The residues of SPase I that comprise the substrate binding site have been identified by solving the x-ray structure of the soluble catalytic domain with a covalently attached 5S penem inhibitor (10) and a structure with a non-covalent lipohexapeptide inhibitor (17). The three-dimensional structure of SPase I with no inhibitor bound (apo-structure) revealed that there is some variation in the binding pocket volume when compared with the inhibitor-bound structures (18). The E. coli SPase residues making direct van der Waals contact with the P1 methyl group are . Those making contact with the P3 residues are Phe-84, Ile-144, Val-132, and Ile-86. The substrate binding to SPase I occurs in an extended conformation. Recently, we have made mutations of the E. coli SPase I in the S1 and S3 pockets that bind the P1 and P3 residues of the substrate to identify the residues that control the substrate specificity (19). We found that alterations of the Ile-144 and Ile-86 residues to alanine residues could alter the substrate specificity and lead to cleava...