NblA, a key protein of phycobilisome degradation, interacts with ClpC, a HSP100 chaperone partner of a cyanobacterial Clp protease

When cyanobacteria are starved for nitrogen, expression of the NblA protein increases and thereby induces proteolytic degradation of phycobilisomes, light-harvesting complexes of pigmented proteins. Phycobilisome degradation leads to a color change of the cells from blue-green to yellow-green, referred to as bleaching or chlorosis. As reported previously, NblA binds via a conserved region at its C terminus to the alpha-subunits of phycobiliproteins, the main components of phycobilisomes. We demonstrate here that a highly conserved stretch of amino acids in the N-terminal helix of NblA is essential for protein function in vivo. Affinity purification of glutathione S-transferase-tagged NblA, expressed in a Nostoc sp. PCC7120 mutant lacking wild-type NblA, resulted in co-precipitation of ClpC, encoded by open reading frame alr2999 of the Nostoc chromosome. ClpC is a HSP100 chaperone partner of the Clp protease. ATP-dependent binding of NblA to ClpC was corroborated by in vitro pull-down assays. Introducing amino acid exchanges, we verified that the conserved N-terminal motif of NblA mediates the interaction with ClpC. Further results indicate that NblA binds phycobiliprotein subunits and ClpC simultaneously, thus bringing the proteins into close proximity. Altogether these results suggest that NblA may act as an adaptor protein that guides a ClpC.ClpP complex to the phycobiliprotein disks in the rods of phycobilisomes, thereby initiating the degradation process.