PURIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE MAJOR SURFACE ARRAY PROTEIN FROM THE AVIRULENT BACILLUS-ANTHRACIS DELTA-STERNE-1

Many prokaryotic organisms possess surface layer (S-layer) proteins that are components of the outermost cell envelope. With immunogold labeling, it was demonstrated that the protein extractable antigen 1 (EA1) was localized on the outer surface and specifically to cell wall fragments from Bacillus anthracis which retained the S layer. When grown in rich medium under aerobic conditions, the avirulent strain Delta Sterne-1 released large amounts of EA1 into the medium, This EA1 had no higher-order structure initially but formed two-dimensional crystals under defined conditions, The released EA1 was purified in aqueous buffers with a three-step procedure and found to have a mass of 95 kDa when subjected to denaturing sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), N-terminal sequence data revealed exact identity to the first eight residues of the S-layer protein from B, thuringiensis 4045. Gel permeation chromatography of the purified EA1 under nondenaturing conditions revealed a single peak corresponding to a mass of approximately 400 kDa, suggesting that a tetramer or dimer of dimers was the primary species in solution, SDS-PAGE of EA1 purified in the absence of protease inhibitors revealed specific proteolytic processing to an 80-kDa form, which immunoreacted with polyclonal anti-EA1 antibodies. This proteolytic cleavage of EA1 to 80 MDa was duplicated with purified EA1 and the protease trypsin or pronase.