Agl16, a Thermophilic Glycosyltransferase Mediating the Last Step of N -Glycan Biosynthesis in the Thermoacidophilic Crenarchaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, the S-layer protein of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius was shown to be N-linked with a tribranched hexasaccharide, composed of Man 2 Glc 1 GlcNAc 2 and a sulfated sugar called sulfoquinovose. To identify genes involved in the biosynthesis and attachment of this glycan, markerless in-frame deletions of genes coding for predicted glycosyltransferases were created. The successful deletion of agl16 , coding for a glycosyltransferase, resulted in the S-layer protein and archaellins having reduced molecular weights, as visualized by Coomassie staining or immunoblotting. This analysis indicated a change in the N -glycan composition. Nano-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analyses confirmed that the glycan of the S-layer protein from the agl16 deletion mutant was a pentasaccharide, which was missing a terminal hexose residue. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analyses of the hydrolyzed N -glycan indicated that the missing hexose is a glucose residue. A physiological characterization of the agl16 deletion mutant revealed a significant effect on the growth at elevated salt concentrations. At 300 mM NaCl, the doubling time of the Δ agl16 mutant was increased 2-fold compared to that of the background strain. Furthermore, the incomplete glycan structure of the Δ agl16 deletion strain affected the assembly and function of the archaellum, as exemplified by semisolid Gelrite plate analysis, in which the motility is decreased according to the N -glycan size.