RseP (YaeL), an Escherichia coli RIP protease, cleaves transmembrane sequences

Escherichia coli RseP (formerly YaeL) is believed to function as a 'regulated intramembrane proteolysis' (RIP) protease that introduces the second cleavage into anti-sigma(E) protein RseA at a position within or close to the transmembrane segment. However, neither its enzymatic activity nor the substrate cleavage position has been established. Here, we show that RseP-dependent cleavage indeed occurs within predicted transmembrane sequences of membrane proteins in vivo. Moreover, RseP catalyzed the same specificity proteolysis in an in vitro reaction system using purified components. Our in vivo and in vitro results show that RseP can cleave transmembrane sequences of some model membrane proteins that are unrelated to RseA, provided that the transmembrane region contains residues of low helical propensity. These results show that RseP has potential ability to cut a broad range of membrane protein sequences. Intriguingly, it is nevertheless recruited to the sigma(E) stress-response cascade as a specific player of RIP.