An Endosymbiont Chaperonin Is a Novel Type of Histidine Protein Kinase1

Symbionin, a GroEL homologous molecular chaperone produced by an intracellular symbiont of the pea aphid, is able to transfer its high-energy phosphate bond to other compounds through its autophosphorylation. When the urea-dissociated monomeric symbionin fixed onto a polyvinylidene difluoride membrane was incubated with [gamma-32P] ATP, it was efficiently phosphorylated at elevated temperatures. The autophosphorylated monomeric 32P-labeled symbionin, when incubated with ADP, transferred a significant portion of its radioactivity to ADP, suggesting that the autocatalytically phosphorylated monomeric symbionin contains high-energy phosphate bonds. It was also shown that when symbiotic proteins were electrophoretically separated, blotted onto a polyvinylidene disulfide membrane and incubated with 32P-labeled symbionin, radioactivity was found on several kinds of polypeptides, indicating that the phosphoryl group was transferred from symbionin to other symbiotic proteins. Peptide sequence analysis and thin-layer chromatographic analysis of the 32P-labeled tryptic fragment of the phosphorylated symbionin revealed that the site of phosphorylation is His-133. These results suggested that symbionin functions as a histidine protein kinase, or a sensor molecule, of the two-component pathway known in other organisms. However, symbionin is not similar in amino acid sequence to any known histidine protein kinase.