Insertions and deletions are undervalued and underutilized source of diversity. Below is an example how a deletion can change metal selectivity of the CbiX chelatase.

1. Altering metal selectivity of cobaltochelatase CbiXS
from Methanosarcina barkeri by
a new structure-guided method of protein evolution introducing insertions and
deletions
Alexander Pisarchik
Corresponding author
Alexander Pisarchik
E-mail: pisarchik@yahoo.com
Phone: 1-650-307-4940
Keywords: Directed Evolution, CbiX, chelatase, metal selectivity, metal specificity,
isertions, deletions

2. Abstract.
Tetrapyrroles are a group of structurally related molecules that differ in the nature
of the centrally chelated metal ion. Although the mechanism of tetrapyrrole metalation is
generally understood, the mechanism of metal specificity and selectivity remains unclear.
It is also unknown how different chelatases evolve new metal preferences.
Here we characterize metal specificity and selectivity of CbiXS
cobaltochelatase
from Methanosarcina barkeri, which is believed to be similar to the primordial
chelatases. Three areas of CbiX chelatase surrounding the main metal coordinating site
were mutated by a novel structure-guided method of in vitro evolution, which introduce
targeted substitutions, deletions and insertions. Mutants of the third alpha helix
demonstrated certain structural constraints characteristic to the p-helix, which are
important for channeling metal ions to the chelatase active site. Metal selectivity was
reversed in three CbiX variants harboring deletion of 2 amino acids in the third protein
loop. While wild type chelatase preferentially inserted Co2+
, while these three mutants
inserted Fe2+
. This data demostrates that introduction of insertions and deletions is a wery
a powerful way of protein evolution. Unfortunatly these type of mutations are mostly
ignored by protein engineers.

3. Introduction.
Many key biochemical processes such as oxygen transport, photosynthesis,
respiration, sulfur and nitrogen metabolism depend on metalated tetrapyrroles as protein
cofactors and prosthetic groups. Insertion of metals in tetrapyrroles is catalyzed by a
diverse group of enzymes called chelatases. Recently chelatases were divided in several
classes (1). Class I chelatases require three subunits for activity and utilize ATP, while
class II chelatases tend to exist as monomers or homodimers and do not require ATP.
Members of class II include protoporphyrin ferrochelatase, HemH, (2), sirohydrochlorin
ferrochelatase SirB (3,4) and sirohydrochlorin cobaltochelatases CbiK (5), CbiXL
and
CbiXS
(1). CbiXS
are the smallest chelatases known with a single a/b domain (1). Other
class II chelatases (CbiK, CbiXL
and HemH) have two such domains. These chelatases
are proposed to arise from CbiXS
-type proteins by gene duplication {Yin, 2006 #43}. All
these features make CbiXS
chelatases an attractive model for studying the evolution of
protein functions.
One protein function that is not completely understood is the mechanism of metal
selectivity, which leads to the preferential insertion of one particular metal ion into the
porphyrin ring. General mechanism of chelatase-mediate metal insertion has been
extensively studied (6,7,8). It involves distortion of the porphyrin ring and insertion of
the metal ion, which is coordinated by several residues (9). These metal coordinating
residues vary in different chelatase. In Hem H ferrochelatases ion is coordinated by
histidine and glutamate (His 183 and Glu264 from Bacillus subtilis) (10-14). In CbiK,
CbiX cobaltochelatases and SirB ferrochelatases metal is coordinated by two histidines
(4,5,15) Despite identical metal-coordinating residues, CbiK, CbiX and SirB chelatases

4. have different metal selectivity. All these chelatases can insert both cobalt and iron, but
CbiK and CbiX chelatases have higher selectivity for cobalt making Co-sirohydrochlorin,
while SirB chelatase prefers iron and produces Fe-sirohydrochlorin (siroheme) (16).
Thus, chelatase metal selectivity must be determined by other residues, not only those
directly involved in metal coordination. In this paper we tried to address this hypothesis
by applying point mutagenesis and in vitro evolution to CbiXS
cobaltochelatase from
Methanosarcina barkeri. We mutated three regions of the CbiX protein surrounding the
metal-binding site by a novel method of directed evolution, capable of introducing point
mutations and gene rearrangements (deletions and duplications). We were able to
generate three mutant proteins with an altered metal selectivity. These enzymes
preferentially inserted Fe2+
even when they were incubated with a mixture of different
metals. Higher affinity for Fe2+
was achieved by an increase of Km for Co2+
or/and a
decrease of Km for Fe2+
. All mutants with a shift in metal selectivity contained multiple
mutations in the third loop, which points to the importance of this region for metal
specificity and selectivity.

5. Results.
Siroheme, which is created by insertion of Fe2+
in sirohydrochlorin, is a prosthetic
group of sulfite reductase required for cysteine biosynthesis. Deletion of sirohydrochlorin
ferrochelatase leads to the cysteine auxotrophy; however CbiX chelatases can restore
cystein biosynthesis. These chelatases insert both Fe2+
and Co2+
in sirohydrochlorin and
have higher affinity for cobalt. If cobalt is present in the incubation media, it inhibits
bacteria’s growth by reducing formation of the siroheme. We used sirohydrochlorin
ferrochelatase deficient (DCysG) strain of E.coli to select functional CbiX mutants and
test their metal selectivity by growing them in the presence of cobalt.
Site-Directed mutagenesis.
Previously, metal selectivity of another sirohydrochlorin chelatase CbiK was
modulated by alanine mutations of two major metal coordinating histidines (His145 and
His207) (5). Similar mutations of the CbiX histidines His12 and His78 did not alter metal
selectivity. Mutation H12A completely abolished ferrochelatase activity resulting in a
clone that could not grow in M9 media. Replacement of the histidines with glutamic acid
(Table 1, mutants H12E and H78E), which makes metal coordinating center similar to the
HemH ferrochelatase (10-14) also failed to change metal selectivity.
Next, we tried an alanine scanning mutagenesis of the charged CbiX residues. We
substituted majority of charged residues (25 out of 32) with alanine and tested growth of
the mutants in minimal media (Table 1) and tested enzyme activity with cobalt in vitro
(data not shown). If we find a mutant with altered specificity towards just one metal ion,
it would point at this residue as a major contributor to the metal selectivity.

6. Unfortunately, we were not able to change metal selectivity by single mutations. Ferro-
and cobaltochelatase activities were changing in a concerted fashion. Mutants with the
decreased ferrochelatase activity and slower growth in M9 media (Table 1, mutants
S14A, F72A, H78A) also showed reduced in vitro activity with cobalt (data not shown).
The H12A mutant that couldn’t grow in the minimal media (Table 1, mutant H12A) also
did not show any chelatase activity with cobalt.
Structure-guided protein evolution
Because of our failure to modify CbiX metal selectivity by alanine mutagenesis,
we decided to try directed evolution. Unfortunately, none of the existing methods of
directed evolution gives sufficient control over nature and location of the introduced
mutations. Therefore, we designed our own method. Its main principle is to target
mutations to the most crucial protein regions, especially loops, which in contrast to the
secondary structures are known to be highly tolerant to various mutations and protein
rearrangements {Ladant, 1992 #46}{Pascarella, 1992 #47}. The details of the method are
described in the Materials and Methods section (Fig.2). Briefly, CbiX gene is split in two
segments. Every segment is amplified by PCR. Random in-frame deletions and
duplications are generated, when the left and the right half of the gene are ligated
together. Substitutions are introduced by degenerate nucleotides at the first codon
position. Degeneracy at the first codon position generates highly diverse libraries, which
also have small size. For example, randomizing 5 residues by this method gives a library

7. of about 1000 clones (45
=1024), which is significantly lower then 3 million variants
produced by the (NNN)5 sequence (205
=3,200,000).
We created three libraries of CbiX mutants each targeting a different region of
CbiX chelatase: loop 1, loop 3 and alpha helixes 3 and 4, surrounding histidines 12 and
78, which are the main metal-coordinating residues (Fig.1). Targeting mutations to these
regions gave us higher chances of success since residues located in the first of second
metal coordinating spheres are more likely to influence metal binding (25). Mutants were
named according to the mutated region. Abbreviation “L” means that mutations resided
in the loop area and “A” means that they were located in the helix region.
Targeted regions were mutated individually. Each library contained around 4000
clones (naïve library) and the ratio of functional clones was different for every region.
For example, library of loop 1 mutants produced around 100 clones growing in M9
media. Sequencing of the 7 clones revealed that only one clone was a real mutant (mutant
L1, Fig.3), while others contained wild type sequence. The library of loop 3 mutants
contained 25 clones growing in M9 and more then half of these clones were real mutants
(mutants L2-L18, Fig.3). A similar situation was observed for the library of alpha helices
3 and 4 (mutants A1-A8, Fig.3).
We also attempted to increase diversity of our library by combining mutations
from different clones. Three targeted areas were amplified from different libraries and
recombined by extension PCR. Around twenty clones from a naïve library of 2000 clones
were able to grow on M9 plates. Surprisingly, just two clones out of 10 sequenced clones

8. were real recombinants (L3A1 and L4A1). Both of them have an identical alpha helix
region coming from the A1 mutant (Fig.3).
Active Clones
Analysis of the clones that could grow in minimal media reveals several important
features related to the histidines directly involved in metal coordination. His12 is located
in the first loop of the CbiX chelatase. It is conserved in most known chelatases and
alanine mutation leads to a complete inactivation of the protein (Table 1). Interestingly,
the only mutant we have generated in this region (fig.3, mutant L1) did not have that
histidine. However, it had two arginines, meaning that His12 was not absolutely required
for protein activity but could be replaced by another charged residue (arginine) without
complete loss of function.
The opposite situation was observed for the alpha helix region, containing the
second invariant histidine (His78). This histidine appears more tolerant to mutations since
alanine mutation (Table 1, mutant H78A) has some residual activity, but all eight clones
harboring mutations in the helix region preserved this histidine.
Mutations located in the alpha helix region also showed some other interesting
features. For example, Lys81 was replaced ether by histidine or arginine meaning that the
positive charge at this position was important for protein function. Five out of 8 mutants
(Fig.3, mutants A1, A3-5, A7) also contained another positively charged residue located
approximately 2 aa downstream. Length of this region also appeared to have some
constraints with five out of eight mutants having the same number of amino acids as the

9. wild type protein (Fig.3, mutants A1-3, A5, A6) and only three mutants having one
residue deletion (Fig.3, mutants A4, A7, A8).
The third loop of the CbiX protein turned to be more tolerant to various
rearrangements. The shortest mutant had 4 aa deletion (Fig.3, mutant L7), while the
longest one was 6 aa longer than the wild type (Fig.3, mutant L4A1). Fifteen out of
seventeen mutants preserved serine Ser47 of the wild-type protein indicating that it is
important for the protein function (Fig.3, mutants L2-L14, L16, L18).
Mutants with altered metal selectivity
The clones able to grow on minimal plates were further grown in liquid M9 media
with cobalt chloride. Three clones harboring mutations in the third loop were able to
grow in this media meaning that they might have higher iron selectivity (Fig.3, mutants
L2, L3 and L4).
As mentioned earlier clones L3A1 and L4A1 were created by combining several
mutations from different regions: loop 3 and alpha helixes 3 and 4. To find out which of
the regions determine cobalt tolerance we tested every mutation individually. Mutants L3
and L4 showed a growth pattern similar to the parental clones L3A1 and L4A1 (Fig.3),
while L1 mutant did not show any tolerance to cobalt, which means that metal specificity
was determined by third loop of the CbiX protein (Fig.3, mutants L3, L4).
Analysis of the third loop of these proteins revealed several interesting features.
Clones L2 and L3 (or L3A1) had a very similar sequence of this region with almost
identical patterns of hydrophobic and hydrophilic residues. Both clones had a negatively
charged residue (glutamic or aspartic acid) located at the same position and a deletion of

10. two polar residues (asparagine and cysteine). Sequence of the L4A1 clone was
completely different. The third loop of this clone was the longest among all clones. It did
not have any negatively charged residues, but instead had a single positively charged
regidue (arginine).
Metal selectivity
As a next step, we checked the metal selectivity of the mutant proteins. We
purified proteins by metal affinity chromatography and checked which metal is
preferentially inserted (Fe2+
or Co2+
) by measuring absorbance spectrum. The spectrum
of sirohydrochlorin has a maximum absorbance peak at 376 nm (23), if cobalt is inserted
the absorbance peak is at 414 nm (23) and if iron is inserted it is at 392 nm (24) (Fig.4).
When wild type CbiX protein was exposed to the mixture of Co2+
and Fe2+
(20
µM each) it inserted only cobalt (Fig.4). Most mutant proteins (like L5 and L6 in Fig.4)
also inserted cobalt preferentially (Fig.4). Only clones L2, L3A1, L3, L4A1 and l4 had
high iron selectivity. These clones showed some cobalt insertion, which was detected by
an increase of absorbance at 414 nm, but the major product had an absorbance maxima at
392 nm (Fig.4). Several other chelatases produced a spectrum with an absorbance peak at
392 nm and a broad shoulder at 414 nm that belong to Co-sirohydrochlorin (Fig.4, L10,
A1). These chelatases may not be very efficient in discriminating between different
metals, so affinity of these enzymes to Fe2+
may not be high enough to avoid inhibition
by cobalt.
Kinetics of metal insertion for the mutants with altered metal selectivity

11. Wild-type chelatase and the mutant proteins with altered metal selectivity were
purified and the kinetics of metal insertion was measured. Mutants L3 and L3A1 showed
a significant increase of Km for cobalt, while Km for iron remained unchanged (Table 2).
It means that increased iron selectivity is achieved by a lower cobalt binding. Quite
opposite effect was observed for L4 and L4A1 mutants: while Km for Fe2+
was lower
than in the wild type, Km for Co2+
remained unchanged (Table 2).
Mutant L2 showed an increase on Km for cobalt and a slight decrease of Km for
iron (Table 2). It was also the fastest growing clone in cobalt-containing media (Fig.3)
and the enhanced iron selectivity of this mutant could be explained by simultaneous
change of catalytic constants for both metals.

12. Discussion.
Despite the relatively well-studied mechanism of porphyrin metalation () the
nature of metal specificity and selectivity of chelatases remains largely unknown. Metal
selectivity is a result of interplay between the nature of metal, porphyrin substrate and the
enzyme itself. As evident from the order of the non-enzymatic porphyrin metalation:
Cu2+
> Zn2+
> Mn2+
> Co2+
> Fe2+
> Ni2+
> Cd2+
> Mg2+
{Hambright, 1974 #171}, different
metals are inserted with different efficiencies. Shen and Ryde (18) showed that Mg2+
has
a lower affinity for porphyrin and stronger affinity for water, while Fe2+
is more likely to
form interactions with the porphyrin. The predicted structure of Fe-porphyrin complex
includes two water molecules and four interactions with porphyrin. For Mg2+
complex
formation of the first bond between metal and porphyrin is the most energy-demanding
step. (19). This high energy cost may also explain why Mg2+
chelatase consists of three
subunits and utilizes ATP (20), while class II chelatases inserting Co2+
and Fe2+
have one
subunit and don’t require ATP.
The nature of the porphyrin substrate is another part of the equation. It may
explain high energy requirements of another class I chelatase: aerobic cobaltochelatase.
This chelatase contain three subunits and require ATP hydrolysis (21). Its substrate
(hydrogenobyrinic acid a,c-diamide) has one of the carbons removed from the ring
through the process of ring contraction (21). The molecule may therefore be stiffer and
less tolerant to distortion by the chelatase.
Nature of the substrate may also explain different specificity of HemH
ferrochelatase towards Cu2+
and Zn2+
(22). Metalation of N-MeMP by Cu2+
was more

13. efficient than that by Zn2+
. At the same time, Michaelis constant for metalation of
protoporphyrin IX by Zn2+
(17µM) is lower than for Cu2+
(170 µM) (22). Size of the hole
in the porphyrin ring was proposed to control metal specificity, which depended on the
type of porphyrin distortion by the chelatase.
The last but not least part of the metal selectivity enigma is the nature of the
chelatase itself. In studies of the chelatases, the most attention is usually paid to the main
metal-binding residues because they are easy to find and because they play the major role
in the porphyrin metalation. They may also have some effect on metal selectivity. For
example, metal specificity of CbiK was previously changed by alanine mutations of the
primary metal coordinating histidines (H145A and H207A). These mutants
complemented cysG deletion in the presence of cobalt, presumably due to the lower
specificity for cobalt (5). We created identical mutations in the CbiX chelatase (H12A
and H78A), but we did not see any changes in the metal selectivity. We also tried to
recreate the metal binding site of iron-specific chelatase (HemH ferrochelatase) (10-14)
by designing H12E and H78E mutations. These mutants did not tolerate cobalt better than
the wild type protein, meaning that replacement of the histidine by glutamate doesn’t lead
to a higher Fe2+
selectivity of CbiX chelatase. It also means that His12 and His78
residues are absolutely required for metal coordination, but the selectivity and specificity
are determined by other protein residues.
There is also a possibility that specificity-determining residues could be different
for different metals. For example, there is evidence that some chelatases have several
metal binding sites. HemH ferrochelatase inserts Fe2+
, Zn2+
and Cu2+
into protoporphyrin

14. IX (35). These metals are coordinated by the invariant residues His183 and Glu264 (14).
Another site is located 7A from His183 and binds Mg2+
, which has a stimulatory role
(14). In CbiK and CbiX chelatases ion and cobalt are assumed to bind to the same site
(16). To verify that we performed alanine scanning mutagenesis of the charged residues,
which are most likely to be involved in metal coordination. If chelatase selectivity is
determined by different metal-binding sites, mutating individual residues will change
metal specificity independently for each metal. If metals are bound to the same site,
mutations will change metal specificity in a concerted fashion. We found that none of our
alanine mutants could grow in the M9 media containing cobalt, which would be expected
for a mutant with high iron selectivity. Some mutants, especially those having mutations
close to the metal binding site (Table 1, mutants H12A, H78A, F43A, S14A), showed a
decrease of ferrochelatase activity, which was accompanied by lower cobaltochelatase
activity in vitro, supporting the assumption that Fe2+
and Co2+
bind to the same metal-
binding site.
Therefore protein metal selectivity is a feature that can not be easily changed by a
single amino acid mutation. Due to the indefinite number of possible amino acid
substitutions, rational protein engineering is not likely to find the right combination of
mutations needed to change metal selectivity. The best solution in this situation is to use
directed evolution. Unfortunately, none of the methods of directed evolution is perfect for
creating targeted synergistic mutations. Methods like ITCHY (26) SCRATCHY (27),
SHIPREC (28) and Nonhomologous Random recombination (NRR) (29,30) introduces
lots of frame-shift mutations, error-prone PCR is not targeted and do not genetare

15. insertions and deletions, gene shuffling tends to have a high background of the wild type
sequences (31). So we designed a novel method of Targeted Directed Evolution, which
was able to create highly diverse library by introducing deletions, insertions and
substitutions. This method is partially based on gene synthesis and gives a good control
over the nature of the introduced mutations, it does not generate stop codons and created
highly-diverse library of small size. The design of the library by this method is based on
the protein structure, which helps avoid meaningless mutations leading to the protein
misfolding and aggregation. It increases the meaningful libraty diversity and improves
protein expression. We used this method to target mutations to the three specific regions
of CbiX chelatase surrounding main metal coordinating residues (His12 and His78): loop
1, loop 3 and alpha helixes 3 and 4 (Fig.1).
Mutation of loop 1 generated a single clone, which had histidines His12 replaced
by arginine (Fig.1). Histidine His12 is one of two main metal coordinating residues and
occupies position equivalent to the His145 of CbiK cobaltochelatase (5) and His183 of
HemH ferrochelatase (10,11). This residue seemed indispensable for protein function
since H12A mutation leads to a complete protein inactivation (Table 1). But substitution
of histidine by arginine, as well as introducing other mutations in the third loop preserved
some residual enzymatic activity. This data demonstrates that even the most critical
residues can be replaced. The nature of the substitution could be one of the reasons, why
the mutant enzyme preserves some residual activity. Histidine and arginine are both
positively charged residues and therefore positive charge could be important for the
activity. But arginie substitution was not the only one. The whole loop sequence was

16. completely changed. Other mutation may have also modified metal affinity, but this
hypothesis still have to be verified.
Mutations in the helix region (Fig. A1-A) of CbiX demonstrated very interesting
features. The third helix of CbiX chelatase corresponds to the so-called p-helix of HemH.
p-helix residues were proposed to serve as a channel for the metal ions connecting the
interior of the active site to the protein exterior (34,14). p-helixes have 4.4 residues per
turn, implying that every fourth residue is in almost azimuthal position with respect to the
first, making a channel for the ions. p-helixes also have a characteristic amino acid
distribution with small amino acids (Ala, Gly and Pro) usually avoided in favor of
aromatic and large aliphatic amino acids (Ile, Leu, Tyr, Trp, Phe, His and Asn) and polar
residues (Asn, Glu, Thr and Ser) (34). The mutants of the alpha helixes 3 and 4 have
several features that could be explained only by p-helix structural constrains. All clones
have at least one positively charged residue preserved (Lys, His, Arg) corresponding to
the Lys81 of the wild type sequence (Fig.3). Five out of 8 mutants also contain another
positively charged residue. The distance between these charged residues is usually 2
amino acids, and the amino acid distribution is also similar to p-helixes. Involvement of
the p-helix in channeling metal ions to the active site was speculative so far. Our data
clearly shows that this protein region has severe structural constrains which are obviously
imposed by its important function. Since none of the mutants we have got changed metal
selectivity, this region may have no metal preferences.
Clones harboring mutations in the third loop of CbiX showed the most striking
results. Three mutants were able to tolerated cobalt much better than the wild type

17. chelatase. These clones were able to grow in the minimal media containing 0.1 mM
cobalt, which is 20 times more than the cobalt concentration used previously (16).
Mutants also showed reverted metal selectivity. When challenged with an equal amount
of Co2+
and Fe2+
, they preferentially inserted iron, while wild type chelatase inserted
cobalt (Fig.4). The mutants can be split in two classes according to their sequence and
kinetic constants. Class I mutants (L2, L3A1) have a deletion of two polar residues
(asparagine and cysteine) at the N-terminal side of the loop. They preserve a negatively
charged residue (glutamic or aspartic acid). Both mutants achieve higher Fe2+
selectivity
by an increase of Km for cobalt (Table 2). The sequence of the Class II mutant (L4A1) is
completely different from clones L2 and L3. This mutant has the longest loop. It has
multiple polar residues and only one charged residue (arginine). This clone doesn’t show
any changes in affinity for cobalt. Instead it has a decrease of Km for Fe2+
(Table 2).
Thus the metal selectivity of CbiX chelatase was found to be determined by the
residues other then those directly involved in metal coordination. It was changed by
introducing multiple targeted mutations in a single protein loop pointing at high ability of
CbiXS
chelatases to develop new properties. Such ability to develop new functions
(evolvability) was recently suggested as an important feature of natural evolution
{O'Loughlin T, 2006 #44}. Proteins that can easily change their properties were proposed
to play the major role in the response of the organisms to the rapidly changing
environment and its survival. Therefore, the best targets of the directed evolution
experiments are highly evolvable enzymes like archaeal CbiXS
chelatases that can have
their properties changed by few strategically-located mutations.

19. Materials and Methods.
Chemicals and reagents. Porphobilinogen was purchased from Porphyrin Products
Inc.; restriction and modification enzymes were purchased from MBI Fermentas, Vent
DNA polymerase was purchased from New England Biolabs, Nickel-NTA resin and gel
filtration columns were from Amersham Biosciences, medium components from Fisher
Scientific and oligonucleotide primers were from Integrated DNA Technologies.
Bacterial strain, media and growth conditions. CysG deletion strain E. coli JM109
was created according to the method described by Datsenko and Wannert {Datsenko,
2000 #48} E. coli RP1 it was used for cloning, over-expression of proteins for metal
affinity chromatography and complementation experiments..
For complementation experiments, E. coli DcysG transformants were grown overnight
in LB supplemented with 100 µg/l of ampicillin at 37°C. 0.5 ml of the overnight culture
was pelleted and resuspended in M9 medium three times (NaCl 0.5 g/l, Na2HPO4 6 g/l,
KH2PO4 3g/l, NH4Cl 1 g/l, glucose 2 g/l, MgSO4 2mM, CaCl2 0.1 mM). Washed cells
were resuspended in 0.1 ml of M9 medium and inoculated in 4 ml of M9 medium
supplemented with 0.1 mg/l of ampicillin and 0.1 mM CoCl2. Tubes were shaken at 30o
C.
Cloning, plasmid construction and cbiX protein purification.
Three enzymatic steps are required to complement CysG deletion in E. coli. Uro’gen
III has to be methylated to precorin-2, oxidized to sirohydrochlorin, which is used to
insert iron. Methylation can be catalyzed CysGa
, which is a truncated variant of CysG
protein (C-terminal residues 203-457) {Fazzio, 1996 #49}. Precorrin-2 is oxidized to

20. sirohydrochlorin in E. coli spontaneously {Raux, 2003 #4} {Leech, 2002 #50}. The
metalation step is catalyzed by CbiX chelatase.
We used pUC-cysGa
-L1 plasmid to create CbiX libraries. This plasmid contained a
cysGa
and a multiple cloning site, which we used to insert CbiX variants. These two genes
were sufficient to complement CysG deficiency in E.coli. Truncated cysG variant cysGa
was amplified from genomic DNA of E. coli JM109 and cloned into pUCmod {Schmidt-
Dannert, 2000 #51}. The region downstream of the cysGa
gene was then replaced with a
new multiple cloning site (SmaI, PstI, HindIII, XhoI, EcoRI, and NotI). CbiXS
gene from
Methanosarcina barkeri (GeneBank accession #NZ_AAAR01001953) was synthesized
as a set of 45 bp long overlapping oligonucleotides and assembled together by
overlapping PCR
All chelatases were synthesized with a 6xHis tag attached to the C-terminal end of the
protein. CbiX proteins were purified by metal chelate affinity chromatography on
TALON resin (Amersham Biosciences) according to the manufacture’s protocol.
Library construction.
Three different regions of cbiX (loop 1, loop 3 and alpha helixes 3 and 4) were chosen
on the basis of their proximity to the metal-binding site. Residues His12 and His78 are
the main metal-coordinating residues (Fig.1).
Fig.2 gives an overview of the method with the third loop as an example. CbiX gene
was separated by PCR in two fragments. The first fragment of the gene was amplified by
a single forward primer and a set of reverse primers, which anneal to the region adjacent
to the targeted area. These primers contain an overhanging sequence with a varying

21. number of codons with one degenerate nucleotide and a restriction site. (Fig.2) The
second fragment of the gene was amplified using single reverse primer and a set of
forward primers designed similarly to the primers described above.
Amplification was done by Taq DNA polymerase (Promega) by heating at 95o
C for 2.5
min followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 94o
C for 15 s, annealing at 55o
C for 15 s
and extension at 72o
C for 40 sec.
Amplifications were pooled together, purified by QIAGEN PCR purification kit and
digested with the appropriate restriction enzyme: NarI restriction site was introduced in
loop 1 mutant library, NheI in loop 3 mutants and Mph1103I in alpha helixes 3 and 4
mutants.
The products were ligated and amplified with flanking primers containing HindIII and
XhoI sites. PCR products were gel-purified, digested with HindIII, and XhoI and ligated
into pUC-cysGa
-L1 (also cut with HindIII and XhoI). The resulting cbiXS
library was
transformed into electrocompetent rcysG E. coli strain. Transformed cells were allowed
to recover in 1 ml of SOC medium at 37o
C for 1.5 hours before being washed with M9
medium and plated on LB (naïve library) or M9 agar plates containing 100 µg/l
ampicillin (selected library).
Library of mutants with several mutated regions. Mutations located in the same
region were pooled together and amplified with the flanking primer and a primer located
between mutated regions. Amplification was done by Vent DNA polymerase (New
England Biolabs) by heating at 95o
C for 2.5 min followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at

22. 94o
C for 15 s, annealing at 55o
C for 15 s and extension at 72o
C for 40 sec. PCR products
were resolved in 1% agarose gels and purified by QIAGEN Gel Extraction kit. Purified
DNA was mixed together and the full-length gene was amplified in one round of
extension PCR. Primers P2364 through P2367 were used to amplify fragments of the
gene for extention PCR. Primers P2364 (forward) GCACGTAAACATTCTGATGTG
and P2365 (reverse) CACATCAGAATGTTTACGTGC were located between loop 1 and
loop 3; and primers P2366 (forward) ACCAAAATTGCAGCAGTGCCA and P2367
(reverse) TGGCACTGCTGCAATTTTGGT were located between loop 3 and helix 3.
Sirohydrochlorin synthesis.
Sirochydrochlorin was generated as described in {Schubert, 2002 #18} by incubating
porphobilinogen with porphobilinogen deaminase (hemC), uroporphyrinogen III synthase
(hemD), uroporphyrinogen III methyltransferase (ylnD), and precorrin-2 dehydrogenase
(ylnF). YlnD and ylnF genes were cloned from B.subtilis. All genes were cloned in
pUCmod {Schmidt-Dannert, 2000 #51}. Cells were grown 24 hours at 30o
C, spinned
down and suspended in the solution containing 50 mM Tris and 50 mM NaCl. Cell were
sonicated and the lysate was cleared by centrifugation at 12000 rpm in Beckman JA-17
rotor. This crude extract was used for sirochydrochlorin synthesis. Porphobilinogen
deaminase (hemC), uroporphyrinogen III synthase (hemD), uroporphyrinogen III
methyltransferase, and precorrin-2 dehydrogenase were incubated in 50 mM Tris-HCl
(pH 8.0) containing 10 mg of orphobilinogen, 0.375 µg/ml of S-adenosyl-L-methionine
and 0.25 µg/ml of NAD+
.

23. Kinetic assays. Chelatase activity was measured by monitoring the disappearance of
sirohydrochlorin (lmax 376 nm) in the reaction volume of 1ml at 25°C by Ultrospec
3300pro spectrophotometer (Amersham Biosciences). Sirohydrochlorin (2.5 µM) was
added to the Tris-HCl buffer (50 mM pH 8) with and various concentrations of metals
(Co2+
or Fe2+
; 0.1-20 µM) in anaerobic conditions. The reaction was started by addition
of 5 to 200µg of the purified CbiX proteins.
Metal competition Assays.
Mutant chelatases were purified by metal affinity chromatography and incubated with
the mixture of Co2+
and Fe2+
ions (20 µM each). Reaction mixture was identical to the
kinetic assays. The mix was incubated 5 min at 25 °C and the absorbance spectrum was
recorded by the Ultrospec 3300pro.

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29. Fig.1. Structure of the CbiX chelatase featuring the metal coordinating residues
(H12 and H78). Mutated regions are shown in red (loop 1, loop 3 and alpha helixes 3 and
4).

30. Fig.2. Scheme of the method. Two parts of the gene are amplified separately with
flanking primer and a set of degenerate primers. PCR products are digested with
appropriate restriction enzyme, ligated, re-amplified with the flanking primers and cloned
in the expression vector.

31. Mutant
Loop 1
(NarI site)
Loop3
(NheI site)
Alpha helixes 3 and 4
(Mph1104I site)
Growthin
M9+cobalt
residue
11 22
residue
45 55
residue
77 88
WT G-HGSKLPYNKEV EN---SEP--T--LG--EA-I VHIT-KDIPR-IL-S -
L1 RYRPQVPGT-K-V WT WT -
L2 WT ----ASEP--S--LV--EA-K WT ++
L3A1 WT ----AS-L--T--L---DGVS MH-VAKDIPR-IL-S +
L3 WT ----AS-L--T--L---DGVS WT +
L4A1 WT –NC--SAPA-SICALTRGGVI MH-VAKDIPR-IL-S ±
L4 WT –NC--SAPA-SICALTRGGVI WT ±
L5 WT ----AS-L--S----R-DGAS WT -
L6 WT ----ASGL--N----R-AAVI WT -
L7 WT ----AS----------LAAAS WT -
L8 WT -NC-ASGL--T----R-DGVI WT -
L9 WT -NC-AS-L--SQ-----GAAI WT -
L10 WT -NC-ASILA---------GAI WT -
L11 WT -NC-ASKA--ST----LGGAI WT -
L12 WT -NC-AS-L--T----R-GGAI WT -
L13 WT -N--AS-L-------DAE--I WT -
L14 WT -NC--SALGAS--------AT WT -
L15 WT -NC--YALGAS--------VS WT -
L16 WT -NC--SALGCY--------AS WT -
L17 WT -NC--PALG--------CFAS WT -
L18 WT NCCAASVL--T----RGEV-S WT -
A1 WT WT MH-VAKDIPR-IL-S -
A2 WT WT AHTT-KDIP--LIMH -
A3 WT WT VHTNMH-VAR-VL-T -
A4 WT WT AH-IMH-IAR-VLA- -
A5 WT WT AH-IIR--MH-GFLS -
A6 WT WT AHTIMH-IAC-ILA- -
A7 WT WT AHII-R--MH-GFLS -
A8 WT WT AHIM-H-IAC-ILA- -
Fig.3. Sequences of the mutants. Amino acids are color coded according to their
properties. Negatively charged residues are red, positively charged are blue, polar
residues are green and hydrophobic residues are black. WT corresponds to the wild type
sequence.

32. Fig.4. Absorption spectra of the metalated sirohydrochlorin produced by mutant
proteins incubated with a mixture of Co2+
and Fe2+
(blue line). Black, red and green lines
correspond to the sirohydrochlorin, cobalt-sirohydrochlorin and iron-sirohydrochlorin
(siroheme).

33. [First Authors Last Name] Page 33
[Insert Running title of <72 characters]
Tables.1
Table 12
Complementation of DcysG deletion by cbiX point mutants3
Mutations
Growth in
M9
medium
Growth in M9
medium with
0.1mM CoCl2
H12A - -
H12E ± -
S14A ± -
K15A +++ -
Y18A +++ -
K20A +++ -
E21A +++ -
D28A +++ -
R32A +++ -
K33A +++ -
H34A +++ -
D36A +++ -
R40A +++ -
F43A +++ -
E48A +++ -
E53A +++ -
E56A +++ -
K65A +++ -
F72A ± -
S75A +++ -
H78A ± -
H78E ± -
K81A +++ -
D82A +++ -
R85A +++ -
D90A +++ -
E91A +++ -
E98A +++ -
D100A +++ -
K102A +++ -
D115A +++ -
E116A +++ -
4
5

34. [First Authors Last Name] Page 34
[Insert Running title of <72 characters]
Table 21
Catalytic properties of cbiX mutants2
Chelatase
Cobalt Iron
Km
[µM]
Vmax
[nmol mg-1
min-1
]
kkat
[min-1
]
Km
[µM]
Vmax
[nmol mg-1
min-1
]
kkat
[min-1
]
Wild-type 0.66±0.17 159.71±46.48 2.38±0.69 0.85±0.28 11.05±4.14 0.18±0.06
L2 2.71±1.30 21.00±1.53 0.31±0.02 0.36±0.30 10.35±2.72 0.15±0.04
L3A1 2.32±0.29 32.84±3.32 0.48±0.05 0.84±0.12 4.75±1.04 0.07±0.02
L3 3.72±1.78 17.14±0.23 0.25±0.01 0.55±0.09 4.21±0.01 0.06±0.01
L4A1 0.56±0.05 12.20±3.06 0.18±0.04 0.15±0.11 17.45±8.37 0.26±0.12
L4 0.38±0.06 10.12±1.68 0.15±0.02 0.16±0.14 14.91±5.59 0.22±0.08
3