Cloning, purification and preliminary crystallographic analysis of a putative pyridoxal kinase from Bacillus subtilis

A putative pyridoxal kinase from B. subtilis has been cloned, overexpressed, purified and crystallized and data have been collected to 2.8 Å resolution. Pyridoxal kinases (PdxK) are able to catalyse the phosphorylation of three vitamin B₆ precursors, pyridoxal, pyridoxine and pyridoxamine, to their 5′-phosphates and play an important role in the vitamin B₆ salvage pathway. Recently, the thiD gene of Bacillus subtilis was found to encode an enzyme which has the activity expected of a pyridoxal kinase despite its previous assignment as an HMPP kinase owing to higher sequence similarity. As such, this enzyme would appear to represent a new class of ‘HMPP kinase-like’ pyridoxal kinases. B. subtilis thiD has been cloned and the protein has been overexpressed in Escherichia coli, purified and subsequently crystallized in a binary complex with ADP and Mg²⁺. X-ray diffraction data have been collected from crystals to 2.8 Å resolution at 100 K. The crystals belong to a primitive tetragonal system, point group 422, and analysis of the systematic absences suggest that they belong to one of the enantiomorphic pair of space groups P4₁2₁2 or P4₃2₁2. Consideration of the space-group symmetry and unit-cell parameters (a = b = 102.9, c = 252.6 Å, α = β = γ = 90°) suggest that the crystals contain between three and six molecules in the asymmetric unit. A full structure determination is under way to provide insights into aspects of the enzyme mechanism and substrate specificity