The bacterial protein YidC accelerates MPIase-dependent integration of membrane proteins.

Bacterial membrane proteins are integrated into membranes through the concerted activities of a series of integration factors, including membrane protein integrase (MPIase). However, how MPIase activity is complemented by other integration factors during membrane protein integration is incompletely understood. Here, using inverted inner-membrane vesicle and reconstituted (proteo)liposome preparations from Escherichia coli cells, along with membrane protein integration assays and the PURE system to produce membrane proteins, we found that anti-MPIase IgG inhibits the integration of both the Sec-independent substrate 3L-Pf3 coat and the Sec-dependent substrate MtlA into E. coli membrane vesicles. MPIase-depleted membrane vesicles lacked both 3L-Pf3 coat and MtlA integration, indicating that MPIase is involved in the integration of both proteins. We developed a reconstitution system in which disordered spontaneous integration was precluded, which revealed that SecYEG, YidC, or both, are not sufficient for Sec-dependent and -independent integration. Although YidC had no effect on MPIase-dependent integration of Sec-independent substrates in the conventional assay system, YidC significantly accelerated the integration when the substrate amounts were increased in our PURE system-based assay. Similar acceleration by YidC was observed for MtlA integration. YidC mutants with amino acid substitutions in the hydrophilic cavity inside the membrane were defective in the acceleration of the Sec-independent integration. Of note, MPIase was up-regulated upon YidC depletion. These results indicate that YidC accelerates the MPIase-dependent integration of membrane proteins, suggesting that MPIase and YidC function sequentially and cooperatively during the catalytic cycle of membrane protein integration.