Acetylphosphate: a novel link between lysine acetylation and intermediary metabolism in bacteria

Intracellular acetyl phosphate modulates Escherichia coli pyruvate metabolism

Lysine acetylation has been shown to be an abundant and vital post-translational modification (PTM) that utilizes acetyl phosphate (AcP) as one of the acetyl group donors in bacteria. The pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex catalyzes the conversion from pyruvate to acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA). Thus far, the connection between lysine acetylation and pyruvate metabolism has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, we show that AcP could acetylate Escherichia coli pyruvate dehydrogenase (AceE) in vitro and in vivo, which could be reversed by protein lysine deacetylase (CobB). In vitro treatment of AceE with AcP also causes increased phosphorylation of the protein, whereas deleting ackA does not affect the phosphorylation of the protein. As a result, in vitro treatment of AceE by AcP leads to decreased enzymatic activity. In contrast, deleting ackA leads to increased acetylation and enzymatic activity of AceE, and deleting pta results in the decreased acetylation and enzymatic activity of AceE. As expected, deleting pta in E. coli causes pyruvate accumulation. Although deleting ackA also causes pyruvate accumulation, decreased expression of the two genes involved in pyruvate metabolism ( ldhA and poxB) is observed in the mutant, indicating that AcP could affect pyruvate metabolism by other routes in addition to modulating the AceE activity. Thus, our results demonstrate that intracellular AcP could modulate pyruvate metabolism in E. coli. For the first time, a linkage between AcP-mediated protein lysine acetylation, pyruvate dehydrogenase activity, and pyruvate metabolism is established.

Mechanism-based inactivators of sirtuin 5: A focused structure-activity relationship study

Sirtuin 5 (SIRT5) is a lysine deacylase enzyme that cleaves negatively charged ε-N-acyllysine posttranslational modifications, arising from short dicarboxylic acids. Inhibition of SIRT5 has been suggested as a target for treatment of leukemia and breast cancer. In this work, we performed a focused structure-activity relationship study that identified highly potent inhibitors of SIRT5. Examples of these inhibitors were shown by kinetic evaluation to function as mechanism-based inactivators. Masking of a crucial carboxylate functionality in the inhibitors provided prodrugs, which were demonstrated to bind SIRT5 in cells. This work underscores the importance of kinetic characterization of enzyme inhibitors and provides insights for the further optimization of inhibitors of SIRT5 with potential for in vivo applications.

Acetyl-CoA synthetase activity is enzymatically regulated by lysine acetylation using acetyl-CoA or acetyl-phosphate as donor molecule

The AMP-forming acetyl-CoA synthetase is regulated by lysine acetylation both in bacteria and eukaryotes. However, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. The Bacillus subtilis acetyltransferase AcuA and the AMP-forming acetyl-CoA synthetase AcsA form an AcuA•AcsA complex, dissociating upon lysine acetylation of AcsA by AcuA. Crystal structures of AcsA from Chloroflexota bacterium in the apo form and in complex with acetyl-adenosine-5'-monophosphate (acetyl-AMP) support the flexible C-terminal domain adopting different conformations. AlphaFold2 predictions suggest binding of AcuA stabilizes AcsA in an undescribed conformation. We show the AcuA•AcsA complex dissociates upon acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) dependent acetylation of AcsA by AcuA. We discover an intrinsic phosphotransacetylase activity enabling AcuA•AcsA generating acetyl-CoA from acetyl-phosphate (AcP) and coenzyme A (CoA) used by AcuA to acetylate and inactivate AcsA. Here, we provide mechanistic insights into the regulation of AMP-forming acetyl-CoA synthetases by lysine acetylation and discover an intrinsic phosphotransacetylase allowing modulation of its activity based on AcP and CoA levels.

Bacteria employ lysine acetylation of transcriptional regulators to adapt gene expression to cellular metabolism

The Escherichia coli TetR-related transcriptional regulator RutR is involved in the coordination of pyrimidine and purine metabolism. Here we report that lysine acetylation modulates RutR function. Applying the genetic code expansion concept, we produced site-specifically lysine-acetylated RutR proteins. The crystal structure of lysine-acetylated RutR reveals how acetylation switches off RutR-DNA-binding. We apply the genetic code expansion concept in E. coli in vivo revealing the consequences of RutR acetylation on the transcriptional level. We propose a model in which RutR acetylation follows different kinetic profiles either reacting non-enzymatically with acetyl-phosphate or enzymatically catalysed by the lysine acetyltransferases PatZ/YfiQ and YiaC. The NAD+-dependent sirtuin deacetylase CobB reverses enzymatic and non-enzymatic acetylation of RutR playing a dual regulatory and detoxifying role. By detecting cellular acetyl-CoA, NAD+ and acetyl-phosphate, bacteria apply lysine acetylation of transcriptional regulators to sense the cellular metabolic state directly adjusting gene expression to changing environmental conditions.

Global profiling of ribosomal protein acetylation reveals essentiality of acetylation homeostasis in maintaining ribosome assembly and function

Acetylation is a global post-translational modification that regulates various cellular processes. Bacterial acetylomic studies have revealed extensive acetylation of ribosomal proteins. However, the role of acetylation in regulating ribosome function remains poorly understood. In this study, we systematically profiled ribosomal protein acetylation and identified a total of 289 acetylated lysine residues in 52 ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) from Salmonella Typhimurium. The majority of acetylated lysine residues of r-proteins were found to be regulated by both acetyltransferase Pat and metabolic intermediate acetyl phosphate. Our results show that acetylation plays a critical role in the assembly of the mature 70S ribosome complex by modulating r-proteins binding to rRNA. Moreover, appropriate acetylation is important for the interactions between elongation factors and polysomes, as well as regulating ribosome translation efficiency and fidelity. Dysregulation of acetylation could alter bacterial sensitivity to ribosome-targeting antibiotics. Collectively, our data suggest that the acetylation homeostasis of ribosomes is crucial for their assembly and function. Furthermore, this mechanism may represent a universal response to environmental signals across different cell types.

Using a synthetic machinery to improve carbon yield with acetylphosphate as the core

In microbial cell factory, CO2 release during acetyl-CoA production from pyruvate significantly decreases the carbon atom economy. Here, we construct and optimize a synthetic carbon conserving pathway named as Sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase Cycle with Trifunctional PhosphoKetolase (SCTPK) in Escherichia coli. This cycle relies on a generalist phosphoketolase Xfspk and converts glucose into the stoichiometric amounts of acetylphosphate (AcP). Furthermore, genetic circuits responding to AcP positively or negatively are created. Together with SCTPK, they constitute a gene-metabolic oscillator that regulates Xfspk and enzymes converting AcP into valuable chemicals in response to intracellular AcP level autonomously, allocating metabolic flux rationally and improving the carbon atom economy of bioconversion process. Using this synthetic machinery, mevalonate is produced with a yield higher than its native theoretical yield, and the highest titer and yield of 3-hydroxypropionate via malonyl-CoA pathway are achieved. This study provides a strategy for improving the carbon yield of microbial cell factories.

Metabolic Engineering for Overproduction of Colanic Acid in Escherichia coli Mutant with Short Lipopolysaccharide

Colanic acid is a major exopolysaccharide existing in most Enterobacteriaceae when exposed to an extreme environment. Colanic acid possesses excellent physical properties and biological activities, which makes it a candidate in the food and healthcare market. Previous strategies for colanic acid overproduction in E. coli mainly focus on removing the negative regulator on colanic acid biosynthesis or overexpressing the rcsA gene to up-regulate the cps operon. In this study, modifications in metabolic pathways were implemented in E. coli mutant strains with shortened lipopolysaccharides to improve colanic acid production. First, ackA was deleted to remove the byproduct acetate and the effect of accumulated acetyl-phosphate on colanic acid production was investigated. Second, 11 genes responsible for O-antigen synthesis were deleted to reduce its competition for glucose-1-phosphate and UDP-galactose with colanic acid production. Third, uppS was overexpressed to supply lipid carriers for synthesizing a colanic acid repeat unit. Colanic acid production in the final engineered strain WZM008/pTrcS reached 11.68 g/L in a 2.0 L bioreactor, 3.54 times the colanic acid production by the WQM001 strain. The results provide insights for further engineering E. coli to maximize CA production.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae physiology and pathogenesis

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is an obligate human pathogen that is the cause of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea. Recently, there has been a surge in gonorrhoea cases that has been exacerbated by the rapid rise in gonococcal multidrug resistance to all useful antimicrobials resulting in this organism becoming a significant public health burden. Therefore, there is a clear and present need to understand the organism's biology through its physiology and pathogenesis to help develop new intervention strategies. The gonococcus initially colonises and adheres to host mucosal surfaces utilising a type IV pilus that helps with microcolony formation. Other adhesion strategies include the porin, PorB, and the phase variable outer membrane protein Opa. The gonococcus is able to subvert complement mediated killing and opsonisation by sialylation of its lipooligosaccharide and deploys a series of anti-phagocytic mechanisms. N. gonorrhoeae is a fastidious organism that is able to grow on a limited number of primary carbon sources such as glucose and lactate. The utilization of lactate by the gonococcus has been implicated in a number of pathogenicity mechanisms. The bacterium lives mainly in microaerobic environments and can grow both aerobically and anaerobically with the aid of nitrite. The gonococcus does not produce siderophores for scavenging iron but can utilize some produced by other bacteria, and it is able to successful chelate iron from host haem, transferrin and lactoferrin. The gonococcus is an incredibly versatile human pathogen; in the following chapter, we detail the intricate mechanisms used by the bacterium to invade and survive within the host.

Post-translational Lysine Ac(et)ylation in Bacteria: A Biochemical, Structural, and Synthetic Biological Perspective

Ac(et)ylation is a post-translational modification present in all domains of life. First identified in mammals in histones to regulate RNA synthesis, today it is known that is regulates fundamental cellular processes also in bacteria: transcription, translation, metabolism, cell motility. Ac(et)ylation can occur at the ε-amino group of lysine side chains or at the α-amino group of a protein. Furthermore small molecules such as polyamines and antibiotics can be acetylated and deacetylated enzymatically at amino groups. While much research focused on N-(ε)-ac(et)ylation of lysine side chains, much less is known about the occurrence, the regulation and the physiological roles on N-(α)-ac(et)ylation of protein amino termini in bacteria. Lysine ac(et)ylation was shown to affect protein function by various mechanisms ranging from quenching of the positive charge, increasing the lysine side chains’ size affecting the protein surface complementarity, increasing the hydrophobicity and by interfering with other post-translational modifications. While N-(ε)-lysine ac(et)ylation was shown to be reversible, dynamically regulated by lysine acetyltransferases and lysine deacetylases, for N-(α)-ac(et)ylation only N-terminal acetyltransferases were identified and so far no deacetylases were discovered neither in bacteria nor in mammals. To this end, N-terminal ac(et)ylation is regarded as being irreversible. Besides enzymatic ac(et)ylation, recent data showed that ac(et)ylation of lysine side chains and of the proteins N-termini can also occur non-enzymatically by the high-energy molecules acetyl-coenzyme A and acetyl-phosphate. Acetyl-phosphate is supposed to be the key molecule that drives non-enzymatic ac(et)ylation in bacteria. Non-enzymatic ac(et)ylation can occur site-specifically with both, the protein primary sequence and the three dimensional structure affecting its efficiency. Ac(et)ylation is tightly controlled by the cellular metabolic state as acetyltransferases use ac(et)yl-CoA as donor molecule for the ac(et)ylation and sirtuin deacetylases use NAD⁺ as co-substrate for the deac(et)ylation. Moreover, the accumulation of ac(et)yl-CoA and acetyl-phosphate is dependent on the cellular metabolic state. This constitutes a feedback control mechanism as activities of many metabolic enzymes were shown to be regulated by lysine ac(et)ylation. Our knowledge on lysine ac(et)ylation significantly increased in the last decade predominantly due to the huge methodological advances that were made in fields such as mass-spectrometry, structural biology and synthetic biology. This also includes the identification of additional acylations occurring on lysine side chains with supposedly different regulatory potential. This review highlights recent advances in the research field. Our knowledge on enzymatic regulation of lysine ac(et)ylation will be summarized with a special focus on structural and mechanistic characterization of the enzymes, the mechanisms underlying non-enzymatic/chemical ac(et)ylation are explained, recent technological progress in the field are presented and selected examples highlighting the important physiological roles of lysine ac(et)ylation are summarized.

Bacterial protein acetylation and its role in cellular physiology and metabolic regulation

Protein acetylation is an evolutionarily conserved posttranslational modification. It affects enzyme activity, metabolic flux distribution, and other critical physiological and biochemical processes by altering protein size and charge. Protein acetylation may thus be a promising tool for metabolic regulation to improve target production and conversion efficiency in fermentation. Here we review the role of protein acetylation in bacterial physiology and metabolism and describe applications of protein acetylation in fermentation engineering and strategies for regulating acetylation status. Although protein acetylation has become a hot topic, the regulatory mechanisms have not been fully characterized. We propose future research directions in protein acetylation.

Acetylation Regulates Survival of Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium under Acid Stress

The ability to acetylate lysine residues is conserved across organisms, and acetylation of lysine residues plays important roles in various cellular functions. Maintaining intracellular pH homeostasis is crucial for the survival of enteric bacteria in the acidic gastric tract. It has been shown that eukaryotes can stabilize the intracellular pH by histone deacetylation. However, it remains unknown whether bacteria can utilize a reversible protein acetylation system to adapt to an acidic environment. Here we demonstrate that protein acetylation/deacetylation is critical for Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium to survive in an acidic environment. We used RNA sequencing to analyze the transcriptome patterns under acid stress and found that the transcriptional levels of genes involved in NAD(+)/NADH metabolism were significantly changed, leading to an increase in the intracellular NAD(+)/NADH ratio. Moreover, acid stress downregulated the transcriptional level of pat, encoding acetyltransferase, and genes cyaA and crp, encoding adenylate cyclase and cyclic AMP receptor protein, respectively, which are positive regulators of pat. It was found that the acid signal alerts the tricarboxylic acid cycle to promote the consumption of acetyl coenzyme A (Ac-CoA), an acetyl group donor for the acetylation reaction. A lowered acetylation level not only was the bacterial response to acid stress but also increased the survival rate of S. Typhimurium under acid stress. The pat deletion mutant had a more stable intracellular pH, which paralleled the higher survival rate after acid treatment compared with that of both the wild-type strain and the cobB (encoding deacetylase) deletion mutant. Our data indicate that bacteria can downregulate the protein acetylation level to prevent the intracellular pH from further falling under acid stress, and this work may provide a new perspective to understand the bacterial acid resistance mechanism.

Activity of the response regulator CiaR in mutants of Streptococcus pneumoniae R6 altered in acetyl phosphate production

The two-component regulatory system (TCS) CiaRH of Streptococcus pneumoniae is implicated in competence, ß-lactam resistance, maintenance of cell integrity, bacteriocin production, host colonization, and virulence. Depending on the growth conditions, CiaR can be highly active in the absence of its cognate kinase CiaH, although phosphorylation of CiaR is required for DNA binding and gene regulation. To test the possibility that acetyl phosphate (AcP) could be the alternative phosphodonor, genes involved in pyruvate metabolism were disrupted to alter cellular levels of acetyl phosphate. Inactivating the genes of pyruvate oxidase SpxB, phosphotransacetylase Pta, and acetate kinase AckA, resulted in very low AcP levels and in strongly reduced CiaR-mediated gene expression in CiaH-deficient strains. Therefore, alternative phosphorylation of CiaR appears to proceed via AcP. The AcP effect on CiaR is not detected in strains with CiaH. Attempts to obtain elevated AcP by preventing its degradation by acetate kinase AckA, were not successful in CiaH-deficient strains with a functional SpxB, the most important enzyme for AcP production in S. pneumoniae. The ciaH-spxB-ackA mutant producing intermediate amounts of AcP could be constructed and showed a promoter activation, which was much higher than expected. Since activation was dependent on AcP, it can apparently be used more efficiently for CiaR phosphorylation in the absence of AckA. Therefore, high AcP levels in the absence of CiaH and AckA may cause extreme overexpression of the CiaR regulon leading to synthetic lethality. AckA is also involved in a regulatory response, which is mediated by CiaH. Addition of acetate to the growth medium switch CiaH from kinase to phosphatase. This switch is lost in the absence of AckA indicating metabolism of acetate is required, which starts with the production of AcP by AckA. Therefore, AckA plays a special regulatory role in the control of the CiaRH TCS.

Catabolism of host-derived compounds during extracellular bacterial infections

Efficient catabolism of host-derived compounds is essential for bacterial survival and virulence. While these links in intracellular bacteria are well studied, such studies in extracellular bacteria lag behind, mostly for technical reasons. The field has identified important metabolic pathways, but the mechanisms by which they impact infection and in particular, establishing the importance of a compound's catabolism versus alternate metabolic roles has been difficult. In this review we will examine evidence for catabolism during extracellular bacterial infections in animals and known or potential roles in virulence. In the process, we point out key gaps in the field that will require new or newly adapted techniques.

Regulation of acetate kinase isozymes and its importance for mixed-acid fermentation in Lactococcus lactis

Acetate kinase (ACK) converts acetyl phosphate to acetate along with the generation of ATP in the pathway for mixed-acid fermentation in Lactococcus lactis. The reverse reaction yields acetyl phosphate for assimilation purposes. Remarkably, L. lactis has two ACK isozymes, and the corresponding genes are present in an operon. We purified both enzymes (AckA1 and AckA2) from L. lactis MG1363 and determined their oligomeric state, specific activities, and allosteric regulation. Both proteins form homodimeric complexes, as shown by size exclusion chromatography and static light-scattering measurements. The turnover number of AckA1 is about an order of magnitude higher than that of AckA2 for the reaction in either direction. The Km values for acetyl phosphate, ATP, and ADP are similar for both enzymes. However, AckA2 has a higher affinity for acetate than does AckA1, suggesting an important role under acetate-limiting conditions despite the lower activity. Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, and phospho-enol-pyruvate inhibit the activities of AckA1 and AckA2 to different extents. The allosteric regulation of AckA1 and AckA2 and the pool sizes of the glycolytic intermediates are consistent with a switch from homolactic to mixed-acid fermentation upon slowing of the growth rate.