Functional analysis of the gene SCO1782 encoding Streptomyces hemolysin (S-hemolysin) in Streptomyces coelicolor M145.

In the process of evaluating the growth of Streptomyces coelicolor on rich media such as blood agar, we found that S. coelicolor a non-pathogenic, well-known antibiotic producer had the ability to grow and produce a prominent hemolytic zone. By comparing the growth with an agarase gene mutant of S. coelicolor, a similar prominent hemolytic zone was found to develop due to the organism's hemolytic activity. After the confirmation of hemolytic activity from S. coelicolor, the genome was searched for hemolysin-coding genes; consequently, SCO1782, SCO2534, and SCO3882 were identified, whose products were annotated as a putative, membrane, and hypothetical proteins, respectively. Functional characterization of all the recombinant proteins expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) revealed that only SCO1782 exhibited hemolytic activity. This S. coelicolor protein, designated as S-hemolysin, showed sequence similarity toward hemolysins from Brachyspira hyodysenteriae (35%) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (62%). Recombinant hemolysin exhibited activity against sheep blood erythrocytes and cytolytic activity against human fibroblast cells. Deletion of SCO1782 resulted in complete loss of hemolysin activity in S. coelicolor.