In vivo and in vitro synthesis of Escherichia coli maltose-binding protein under regulatory control of the lacUV5 promoter-operator.

It has not been possible to obtain in vitro expression of the positively regulated malE gene encoding the periplasmic maltose-binding protein (MBP) of Escherichia coli. To facilitate in vitro malE expression, we constructed plasmids that place the malE gene under transcriptional control of the lacUV5 promoter-operator. These plasmids could be grouped into three classes, based upon their ability to complement in vivo a chromosomal malE deletion in the presence or absence of isopropyl thiogalactoside. In the one class I plasmid analyzed, the lacUV5-malE junction was just 3' to the malE ATG initiation codon, and this plasmid did not complement the malE deletion. Class II and class III plasmids retained various amounts of the malE promoter. MBP synthesis was solely under control of the lacUV5 promoter in the class II plasmids, and MBP synthesis was under control of both the lacUV5 and malE promoters in the class III plasmids. A malE mutation that renders the MBP signal peptide export defective was genetically recombined onto one of the class II plasmids. The in vivo synthesis and export of plasmid-encoded MBP were studied in the presence and absence of isopropyl thiogalactoside and maltose and in a strain harboring a prlA mutation that suppresses the malE signal sequence mutation and is thought to alter the export machinery of cells. In addition, both class II and class III plasmids programmed the synthesis of precursor MBP in an in vitro-coupled transcription-translation system. When precursor MBP was synthesized in vitro in the presence of E. coli membrane vesicles, a significant portion of wild-type precursor MBP, but not export-defective precursor MBP, was converted to a form that migrated on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels identically to mature MBP synthesized in vivo.