Campos Francisco, Zamudio Fernando, Covarrubias Alejandra A
Departamento de Biología Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Av. Universidad 2001, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62210, Mexico.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006 Apr 7;342(2):406-13. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2006.01.151. Epub 2006 Feb 7.
Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins constitute a set of proteins widespread in the plant kingdom that show common physicochemical properties such as high hydrophilicity and high content of small amino acid residues such as glycine, alanine, and serine. Typically, these proteins accumulate in response to water deficit conditions imposed by the environment or during plant normal development. In this work, we show that the over-expression in Escherichia coli of proteins of the LEA 2 and the LEA 4 families from Arabidopsis thaliana leads to inhibition of bacterial growth and that this effect is dependent on discrete regions of the proteins. Our data indicate that their antimicrobial effect is achieved through their interaction with intracellular targets. The relevance of the cationic nature and the predicted structural organization of particular protein domains in this detrimental effect on the bacteria growth process is discussed.
胚胎发育晚期丰富（LEA）蛋白是植物界广泛存在的一组蛋白质，具有共同的物理化学性质，如高亲水性以及高含量的小氨基酸残基，如甘氨酸、丙氨酸和丝氨酸。通常，这些蛋白质在环境施加的水分亏缺条件下或植物正常发育过程中积累。在这项工作中，我们表明，拟南芥LEA 2和LEA 4家族蛋白质在大肠杆菌中的过表达会导致细菌生长受到抑制，并且这种效应取决于蛋白质的离散区域。我们的数据表明，它们的抗菌作用是通过与细胞内靶点相互作用实现的。讨论了特定蛋白质结构域的阳离子性质和预测的结构组织对细菌生长过程产生这种有害影响的相关性。
