Purification of the putA gene product. A bifunctional membrane-bound protein from Salmonella typhimurium responsible for the two-step oxidation of proline to glutamate.

In this paper we report the purification of a protein which is able to catalyze both the proline oxidase and the pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid dehydrogenase activities necessary for the oxidation of proline to glutamic acid. The purification involves the preparation of a crude membrane pellet, detergent solubilization, ammonium sulfate fractionation, and DEAE-chromatography. We are able to obtain an essentially pure preparation (greater than 95% pure) after only a 52-fold purification, demonstrating that the protein is a major protein in cells fully induced for proline utilization. Both proline oxidase and pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid dehydrogenase activities co-purity throughout our purification. Velocity sedimentation of the purified protein demonstrates that both proline oxidase and pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid dehydrogenase activities co-sediment. Early in the purification procedure we are able to detect two species of protein which have both proline oxidase and pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid dehydrogenase activities. Our procedure purifies only the larger molecular weight species. The purified protein is a dimer composed of identical 132,000-dalton subunits. Analysis of mutants defective for proline utilization demonstrate that the bifunctional enzyme is the putA gene product.