A beta-lysine adenylating enzyme and a beta-lysine binding protein involved in poly beta-lysine chain assembly in nourseothricin synthesis in Streptomyces noursei.

Nourseothricins (syn. Streptothricins), a group of nucleoside peptides produced by several streptomycete strains, contain a poly beta-lysine chain of variable length attached in amide linkage to the amino sugar moiety gulosamine of the nucleoside portion. We show that the nourseothricin-producing Streptomyces noursei contains an enzyme (NpsA) of an apparent M(r) 56,000 that specifically activates beta-lysine by adenylation but does not bind to it as a thioester. Cloning and sequencing of npsA from S. noursei including its flanking DNA regions revealed that it is closely linked to the nourseothricin resistance gene nat1 and some other genes on the chromosome possibly involved in nourseothricin biosynthesis. The deduced amino-acid sequence revealed that NpsA is a stand-alone adenylation domain with similarity to the adenylation domains of nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). Further analysis revealed that S. noursei contains a beta-lysine binding enzyme (NpsB) of about M(r) 64,100 which can be loaded by NpsA with beta-lysine as a thioester. Analysis of the deduced amino-acid sequence from the gene (npsB) of NpsB showed that it consists of two domains. The N-terminal domain of approximately 100 amino-acid residues has high similarity to PCP domains of NRPSs whereas the 450-amino-acid C-terminal domain has a high similarity to epimerization (E)-domains of NRPSs. Remarkably, in this E-domain the conserved H-H-motif is changed to H-Q, which suggests that either the domain is nonfunctional or has a specialized function. The presence of one single adenylating beta-lysine activating enzyme in nourseothricin-producing streptomycete and a separate binding protein suggests an iteratively operating NRPS-module catalyses synthesis of the poly beta-lysine chain.