Some bacterial phospholipases C are important virulent factors in the pathogenesis of bacterial infections. This is also the case with Listeria monocytogenes, an intracellular pathogenic bacterium and a causative agent of the potentially life threatening disease, listeriosis. In this thesis, we have investigated the proform of listerial PC-PLCLm (proPC PLCLm) and homologous broad range phospholipases C from Listeria monocytogenes (PC-PLCLm), Bacillus cereus (PC PLCBc), and Clostridium perfringens (PC-PLCCp). All proteins were isolated recombinantly by heterologous expression in Escherichia coli, and purified by chitin affinity chromatography and size exclusion chromatography. Circular dichroism spectroscopy showed that all proteins have an α-helical structure and are highly thermostable. A colorimetric method was used to determine enzyme activities with multilamellar lipid vesicles (MLVs) used as substrates. At a single and physiologically relevant test condition (MLVs from 100 % POPC, pH 6.5, 50 µM ZnSO4, 1 mM CaCl2) PC PLCBc showed the highest fosfolipase activity, followed by PC PLCCp and PC PLCLm. PC-PLCLm and PC PLCCp had comparable sphingomyelinase and phospholipase activities, whereas the sphingomyelinase activity of PC-PLCBc was 60 % lower than the phospholipase activity. As expected, proPC-PLCLm had very low phospholipase activity. MLV lipid composition (ratio of POPC, sphingomyelin, and cholesterol) had an important effect on enzyme activity. Cosedimentation assays showed that the proform and the mature form of PC PLCLm had comparable MLV binding. Experiments with proPC PLCLm showed that the propeptide was cleaved of with time. Proteolytic stability analysis with long-term incubation showed that the propeptide cleavage was significantly slowed at pH 4.5. The addition of EDTA and single amino acid substitutions did not significantly improve the stability of proPC PLCLm. The results of this thesis provide a good basis for further comparison of homologous PC-PLCs and study of the proform of PC PLCLm.
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