Proteomic Analysis Of The Role Of Nos-Like Proteins In Bacteria

The physiological and pathological importance of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) in eukaryotic systems has been well established. Although presence of a NOS-like protein in prokaryotic systems is attracting increasing interest, a functional role has yet to be assigned to this intriguing enzyme. Possible roles for this enzyme could include: intercellular signaling to coordinate cellular/infectious activity, regulation via NO-mediated post translational modifications, or nitration of compounds in different biosynthetic pathways. In efforts to determine a probable role for this enzyme, we have acquired a bacterial-NOS knockout in Bacillus subtilis and have used 2D-Differential in gel electrophoresis (DIGE) to analyze the proteomic effects of the expression of this gene. Proteins which exhibited significant changes in expression, with a p value ≤0.05 and fold change ≥|2|, have been isolated and identified by protein mass fingerprinting (PMF) in order to shed light on the relevance of this bacterial NOS homologue. Proteins identified thus far are involved in cellular metabolism, amino acid metabolism and nucleic acid metabolism. This work has been funded by NSERC.