A conserved residue, PomB-F22, in the transmembrane segment of the flagellar stator complex, has a critical role in conducting ions and generating torque Takashi Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Chikusa-Ku, Nagoya 464-8602, JapanBacterial flagellar motors exploit the electrochemical potential gradient of a coupling ion (H + or Na + ) as their energy source, and are composed of stator and rotor proteins. Sodium-driven and proton-driven motors have the stator proteins PomA and PomB or MotA and MotB, respectively, which interact with each other in their transmembrane (TM) regions to form an ion channel. The single TM region of PomB or MotB, which forms the ion-conduction pathway together with TM3 and TM4 of PomA or MotA, respectively, has a highly conserved aspartate residue that is the ion binding site and is essential for rotation. To investigate the ion conductivity and selectivity of the Na + -driven PomA/PomB stator complex, we replaced conserved residues predicted to be near the conserved aspartate with H + -type residues, PomA-N194Y, PomB-F22Y and/or PomB-S27T. Motility analysis revealed that the ion specificity was not changed by either of the PomB mutations. PomB-F22Y required a higher concentration of Na + to exhibit swimming, but this effect was suppressed by additional mutations, PomA-N194Y or PomB-S27T. Moreover, the motility of the PomB-F22Y mutant was resistant to phenamil, a specific inhibitor for the Na + channel. When PomB-F22 was changed to other amino acids and the effects on swimming ability were investigated, replacement with a hydrophilic residue decreased the maximum swimming speed and conferred strong resistance to phenamil. From these results, we speculate that the Na + flux is reduced by the PomB-F22Y mutation, and that PomB-F22 is important for the effective release of Na + from PomB-D24.
INTRODUCTIONSome ion channels and transporters that exist in cell membranes can selectively translocate only a particular ion. The high ion specificity of an ion channel or transporter is extremely important for signal transduction, membrane excitability and the homeostasis of organisms. Each selective ion transporter, which is coupled to a sodium ion, such as LeuT, NtpK or NhaA, possesses an ion binding pocket. A particular ion and/or a transport substrate interacts with the ion binding pocket, induces a conformational change, and is then translocated to the opposite side across the membrane (Gouaux & Mackinnon, 2005;Yamashita et al., 2005;Hunte et al., 2005;Murata et al., 2005Murata et al., , 2008. For example, in the Na + -driven V-type ATPase of Enterococcus hirae, the transmembrane complex V o , which conducts Na + (or Li + ), is composed of a membrane rotor ring (K-ring) comprising oligomers of NtpK and a single copy of the NtpI subunit. It has been suggested that the cavity size of the K-ring binding pocket contributes to the ion specificity, that five residues (L 61 , T 64 , Q 65 , Q 110 , E 139 ) of NtpK are involved in the Na + binding to the K-ri...