Acetate-dependent methylation of two corrinoid proteins in extracts of Methanosarcina barkeri.

Corrinoid proteins have been implicated as methyl carriers in methane formation from acetate, yet specific corrinoid proteins methylated by acetate-derived intermediates have not been identified. In the presence of ATP, H2, and bromoethanesulfonic acid, label from 3H- or 2-14C-labeled acetate was incorporated into the protein fraction of cell extracts of Methanosarcina barkeri. Incorporated label was susceptible to photolysis, yielding labeled methane as the anaerobic photolysis product. Size exclusion high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) demonstrated the presence of at least three labeled proteins with native molecular sizes of 480, 200, and 29 kDa, while electrophoresis indicated that four major labeled proteins were present. Dual-label experiments demonstrated that these four proteins were methylated rather than acetylated. Two of the proteins (480 and 29 kDa) contained the majority of radiolabel and were stably methylated. After labeling with [2-14C]acetate, the stable 14CH3-proteins were partially purified, and 14CH3-cofactors were isolated from each protein. UV-visible spectroscopy and HPLC demonstrated these to be methylated corrinoids. When the 480-kDa corrinoid protein was purified to 70% homogeneity, the preparation was found to have subunits of 40 and 30 kDa. The 480-kDa protein but not the 29-kDa protein was methylated during in vitro methanogenesis from acetate and demethylated as methanogenesis ceased, consistent with the involvement of this protein in methane formation.