Isolation and identification of the messenger ribonucleic acid for a structural lipoprotein of the Escherichia coli outer membrane.

The cells of Escherichia coli strain CP 78 were labeled with [32P]orthophosphate and the total radioactive RNA was prepared from the cells. The mRNA that codes for a structural lipoprotein in the outer membrane was purified from the total RNA by three successive electrophoreses on polyacrylamide slab gels, twice at pH 8.3 and once at pH 3.5 in 7 M urea. Approximately 0.002% of the total radioactive phosphate used was incorporated into the fraction containing the most purified mRNA. The two-dimensional fingerprint of the T1 ribonuclease digest of the 32P-labeled mRNA showed that the purity of the mRNA was as high as 90%. A preliminary sequence analysis was carried out on the T1 ribonuclease oligonucleotides which had been separated by the fingerprinting procedure. By using the established amino acid sequence of the lipoprotein and the genetic code, three relatively long oligonucleotides were assigned to code for three different parts of the lipoprotein. From these data, the present RNA fraction was identified as the lipoprotein mRNA. From the analysis of the T1 ribonuclease oligonucleotides, the mRNA was estimated to be 360 +/- 10 nucleotides in length. Although the length of the mRNA was enough to code for 2 lipoprotein molecules, T1 ribonuclease digestion of the mRNA yielded only 1 mol/mol of mRNA of the individual oligonucleotides assigned to parts of the amino acid sequence of the lipoprotein. This suggests that the mRNA codes for only 1 molecule of the lipoprotein. It was also found that the mRNA has no polyadenylate sequence at the 3' end.