Detection and characterization of a sialoglycosylated bacterial ABC-type phosphate transporter protein from patients with visceral leishmaniasis

Abstract

We report the discovery and characterization of a glycosylated bacterial ABC-type phosphate transporter isolated from the peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) fraction of patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Three disease-associated 9-O-acetylated sialoglycoproteins (9-O-AcSGPs) of 19, 56 and 65 kDa, respectively, had been identified and their purity, apparent mass and pI established by SDS-PAGE and isoelectric focusing. Western blot analyses showed that the 9-O-acetylated sialic acid is linked via α2 → 6 linkage to a subterminal N-acetylgalactosamine. For the 56 kDa protein, N- as well as O-glycosylations were demonstrated by specific glycosidase treatment and found to account for more than 9 kDa of the protein mass. The presence of sialic acids was further confirmed through thin layer chromatography, fluorimetric HPLC and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry. The protein was identified by mass spectrometry and de novo sequencing of five tryptic fragments as a periplasmic ABC-type phosphate transporter of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The amino acid sequences of the assigned peptides had 83-100% identity with the NCBI entry for a Pseudomonas transporter protein. Based on the recently reported X-ray structure of a human phosphate-binding protein, we predicted a 3D structural model for the 56 kDa protein using homology and threading methods. The most probable N- and O-glycosylation sites were identified by combinations of sequence motif-searching bioinformatics tools, solvent accessibility calculations, structural environment analyses and mass spectrometric data. This is the first reported glycosylation as well as sialylation of the periplasmic component of an ABC-type phosphate transporter protein and of one of few identified bacterial glycoproteins.