Role of the leader and structural regions of prelantibiotic peptides as assessed by expressing nisin-subtilin chimeras in Bacillus subtilis 168, and characterization of their physical, chemical, and antimicrobial properties.

Biosynthesis of lantibiotics such as nisin and subtilin involves post-translational modifications, including dehydration of serines and threonines, formation of thioether cross-linkages, translocation, cleavage of a leader sequence, and release into the medium. We have studied the cellular machinery that performs the modifications by constructing and expressing nisin-subtilin chimeric prepeptides in a strain of Bacillus subtilis 168 that possesses all of the cellular machinery for making subtilin except for the presubtilin gene. The chimeras consisted of a normal subtilin leader region (SL), fused to nisin-subtilin chimeric structural regions, one of which was SL-Nis1-11-Sub12-32, in which the N-terminal portion of the structural region was derived from nisin, and the C-terminal portion derived from subtilin. This chimera was accurately and efficiently converted to the corresponding mature lantibiotic, as established by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography profiles, proton NMR spectroscopy, mass spectral analysis, and biological activity. A succinylated form of the chimera was also produced. Another chimera was in the reverse sense, with subtilin sequence at the N terminus and nisin sequence at the C terminus of the structural region (SL-Sub1-11-Nis12-34). It was processed into a heterogeneous mixture of products, none of which had the characteristics of a correctly processed polypeptide, but did contain a minor component that was active, with a specific activity that considerably exceeded nisin itself. These results, together with results published earlier, establish that processing requires specific recognition between the prelantibiotic peptide and the processing machinery, and in order for the processing to occur correctly, there must be an appropriate combination of the N-terminal part of the leader region and the C-terminal part of the structural region of the prepeptide.