Effects of growth phase and the developmentally significant bldA-specified tRNA on the membrane-associated proteome of Streptomyces coelicolor

Previous proteomic analyses of Streptomyces coelicolor by two-dimensional electrophoresis and protein mass fingerprinting focused on extracts from total cellular material. Here, the membrane-associated proteome of cultures grown in a liquid minimal medium was partially characterized. The products of some 120 genes were characterized from the membrane fraction, with 70 predicted to possess at least one transmembrane helix. A notably high proportion of ABC transporter systems was represented; the specific types detected provided a snapshot of the nutritional requirements of the mycelium. The membrane-associated proteins did not change very much in abundance in different phases of growth in liquid minimal medium. Identification of gene products not expected to be present in membrane protein extracts led to a reconsideration of the genome annotation in two cases, and supplemented scarce information on 11 hypothetical/conserved hypothetical proteins of unknown function. The wild-type membrane proteome was compared with that of a bldA mutant lacking the only tRNA capable of efficient translation of the rare UUA (leucine) codon. Such mutants are unaffected in vegetative growth but are defective in many aspects of secondary metabolism and morphological differentiation. There were a few clear changes in the membrane proteome of the mutant. In particular, two hypothetical proteins (SCO4244 and SCO4252) were completely absent from the bldA mutant, and this was associated with the TTA-containing regulatory gene SCO4263. Evidence for the control of a cluster of function-unknown genes by the SCO4263 regulator revealed a new aspect of the pleiotropic bldA phenotype.