Replacement of alanine 58 by asparagine enables the melibiose carrier of Klebsiella pneumoniae to couple sugar transport to Na+.

The melibiose carrier of Klebsiella pneumoniae couples sugar transport to H+ and Li+, while that of Escherichia coli uses Na+ besides the other two cation species (Hama and Wilson, 1992). We have shown that the K. pneumoniae melibiose carrier is capable of recognizing Na+ when the amino-terminal 81 residues are replaced by the corresponding region of the E. coli melibiose carrier (Hama and Wilson, 1993). In this amino-terminal region there are 5 residues that are not conserved between the two carriers. In this study, we changed each of the 5 residues of the K. pneumoniae carrier to the one in the E. coli carrier. The substitutions are Ile-36-->Val, Val-43-->Leu, Leu-54-->Trp, Ala-58-->Asn, and Cys-68-->Ala. With four of the five mutants, Ile-36-->Val, Val-43-->Leu, Leu-54-->Trp, and Cys-68-->Ala, sugar accumulation was not affected by Na+. In striking contrast, melibiose and methyl-1-thio-beta-D-galactopyranoside accumulation was greatly stimulated by Na+ with the Ala-58-->Asn mutant. Furthermore, Na+ uptake coupled to downhill melibiose transport was observed with the Ala-58-->Asn mutant. These results indicate that the Ala-58-->Asn substitution enables the K. pneumoniae melibiose carrier to couple sugar transport to Na+. It is clear that the Asn-58 residue (Asn-54 in the E. coli carrier) is involved in Na+ recognition.