Structural and functional analysis show that the Escherichia coli uncharacterized protein YjcS is likely an alkylsulfatase.

Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is a widely used anionic surfactant in industry and research settings, and is known to have a detrimental effect to the environment. The pathway of SDS degradation by bacteria is initiated by an alkylsulfatase and the oxidized product, 1-dodecanoic acid, subsequently enters into the β-oxidation pathway and is used as a carbon source. In this work, we solved the crystal structure of Escherichia coli uncharacterized protein YjcS and identified that it belongs to the Type III alkylsulfatase with a signal peptide (residues 1-29) at the N terminus. YjcS hydrolyzed SDS and the double mutant D184N-H185A located in the conserved HXHXDH catalytic motif abolished this activity.