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Inhibition of Vibrio harveyi bioluminescence by cerulenin: in vivo evidence for covalent modification of the reductase enzyme involved in aldehyde synthesis

Bacterial bioluminescence is very sensitive to cerulenin, a fungal antibiotic which is known to inhibit fatty acid synthesis. When Vibrio harveyi cells pretreated with cerulenin were incubated with [3H]myristic acid in vivo, acylation of the 57-kilodalton reductase subunit of the luminescence-specific fatty acid reductase complex was specifically inhibited. In contrast, in vitro acylation of both the synthetase and transferase subunits, as well as the activities of luciferase, transferase, and aldehyde dehydrogenase, were not adversely affected by cerulenin. Light emission of wild-type V. harveyi was 20-fold less sensitive to cerulenin at low concentrations (10 micrograms/ml) than that of the dark mutant strain M17, which requires exogenous myristic acid for luminescence because of a defective transferase subunit. The sensitivity of myristic acid-stimulated luminescence in the mutant strain M17 exceeded that of phospholipid synthesis from [14C]acetate, whereas uptake and incorporation of exogenous [14C]myristic acid into phospholipids was increased by cerulenin. The reductase subunit could be labeled by incubating M17 cells with [3H]tetrahydrocerulenin; this labeling was prevented by preincubation with either unlabeled cerulenin or myristic acid. Labeling of the reductase subunit with [3H]tetrahydrocerulenin was also noted in an aldehyde-stimulated mutant (A16) but not in wild-type cells or in another aldehyde-stimulated mutant (M42) in which [3H]myristoyl turnover at the reductase subunit was found to be defective. These results indicate that (i) cerulenin specifically and covalently inhibits the reductase component of aldehyde synthesis, (ii) this enzyme is partially protected from cerulenin inhibition in the wild-type strain in vivo, and (iii) two dark mutants which exhibit similar luminescence phenotypes (mutants A16 and M42) are blocked at different stages of fatty acid reduction.