Monoclonal antibodies against the lac carrier protein from Escherichia coli. 2. Binding studies with membrane vesicles and proteoliposomes reconstituted with purified lac carrier protein.

Monoclonal antibodies 4B1 and 5F7 bind to distinct, nonoverlapping epitopes in the lac carrier protein. By use of immunofluorescence microscopy and radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies and Fab fragments, it is shown that both 4B1 and 5F7 bind to spheroplasts and to right-side-out vesicles, but only to a small extent to inside-out vesicles. Clearly, therefore, the lac carrier protein has an asymmetric orientation within the cytoplasmic membrane of Escherichia coli, and both epitopes are located on the periplasmic surface. In right-side-out vesicles, radiolabeled 4B1 binds with a stoichiometry of 1 mol of antibody per 2 mol of lac carrier protein, while radiolabeled 4B1 Fab fragments bind 1:1. Importantly, the intact antibody and its Fab fragments bind to proteoliposomes reconstituted with purified lac carrier protein with a stoichiometry very similar to that observed in right-side-out membrane vesicles. Thus, it seems highly likely that the orientation of the lac carrier protein in the reconstituted system is similar to that in the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane, at least with respect to 4B1 epitope.