Evidence for the physiological importance of the phosphotransfer between the two regulatory components, EnvZ and OmpR, in osmoregulation in Escherichia coli

Previously, the transfer of the phosphoryl group between the EnvZ and OmpR proteins, which are involved in activation of the ompF and ompC genes in response to the medium osmolarity, has been demonstrated in vitro. In this study, we characterized mutant EnvZ and OmpR proteins in terms of their in vitro phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. The proteins isolated from the mutants, envZ11 and ompR3, were found to be defective in seemingly the same aspect, i.e. OmpR dephosphorylation. The protein isolated from the ompR77 mutant, which is a suppressor mutant specific for envZ11, was found to be defective in another aspect, i.e. OmpR phosphorylation. These results imply that the phosphotransfer reactions observed in vitro play roles in the mechanism underlying the osmoregulatory expression of the ompF and ompC genes in vivo. We provide evidence that the EnvZ protein is involved not only in OmpR phosphorylation but also in OmpR dephosphorylation.