Identification of the N-terminal domain of enzyme I of the Escherichia coli phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system produced by proteolytic digestion.

The phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system of bacteria plays an important role in the concomitant uptake and phosphorylation of numerous sugars. The first protein in the pathway of phosphotransfer of the phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system is Enzyme I. It has been shown that a stable N-terminal domain can be produced by treatment of the purified protein with various proteolytic enzymes. We show here that the region from glutamate-252 to leucine-264 is accessible to proteolysis resulting in N-terminal cores ranging from M(r) 27521 to 28799.