Nucleotide sequences and characterization of liv genes encoding components of the high-affinity branched-chain amino acid transport system in Salmonella typhimurium.

A 7.6-kb fragment of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 containing the liv gene cluster, which specifies the high-affinity branched-chain amino acid transport system (LIV-I), has been isolated. The upstream region contains the livB and livC genes encoding the leucine-isoleucine-valine-threonine and leucine-specific binding proteins, respectively. In this study, the nucleotide sequence of the 4-kb downstream segment was determined and found to contain four reading frames, designated as livA, livE, livF, and livG, that encode putative membrane-associated proteins. The livA and livE genes encode hydrophobic proteins composed of 308 and 425 amino acid residues, respectively. The livF and livG genes encode hydrophilic proteins of 255 and 237 amino acids, respectively; both the proteins contain consensus amino acid sequences found in proteins with ATP-binding sites. These four genes linked together have a potential rho-independent transcriptional terminator adjacent to the 3'-end of livG. No promoter sequence was found in the immediate upstream region of the livAEFG cluster. The livA, livE, livF, and livG gene products were identified as proteins with apparent M(r)s of 25,500, 34,500, 28,000, and 26,000, respectively, by SDS-polyacryl-amide gel electrophoresis. The deduced amino acid sequences of these four proteins showed strong homology to those of the corresponding membrane-associated proteins required for the high-affinity branched-chain amino acid transport systems from both Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.