Periplasmic proteins of Escherichia coli are highly resistant to aggregation: reappraisal for roles of molecular chaperones in periplasm.

Periplasmic proteins of Gram-negative bacteria like Escherichia coli are subjected to immediate affect of environmental fluctuation that may unfold proteins, due to the permeability of the outer membrane to small molecules. They are thus supposedly protected by certain molecular chaperones. Nevertheless, no homologues of typical molecular chaperones have so far been found in periplasm, and the recently reported chaperone activities of periplasmic protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) and peptidyl prolyl isomerase (PPI) seem to be too weak to satisfy such assumed needs. In an attempt to reveal whether periplasmic proteins exhibit certain unusual properties, we discovered that such proteins as a whole are highly resistant to aggregation under a wide variety of denaturing conditions. Furthermore, in an effort to unveil the nature behind this phenomenon we purified and examined four prominent periplasmic proteins. Our results demonstrate that these proteins unfold at rather mild denaturing conditions and expose hydrophobic surfaces during such unfolding process, but hardly form complexes with a typical molecular chaperone. Based on these observations, we propose that the periplasmic proteins have been evolved to resist the formation of aggregates when subjected to various denaturing conditions and molecular chaperones may thus not be needed in periplasm.