Relationship between phospholipid compositions and transport activities of amino acids in Escherichia coli membrane vesicles

Cells of Escherichia coli were incubated in broth medium in the presence of 5 mM of hydroxylamine which completely inhibited growth but did not affect viabilities. Hydroxylamine is known to inhibit phosphatidylserine decarboxylase. A large amount of phosphatidylserine (up to 20% of total phospholipids), which did not occur in normal cells, accumulated accompanied with a decrease in phosphatidylethanolamine. Higher uptake activities of serine and glutamate were observed with the hydroxylamine-treated cells than control cells. When membrane vesicles from hydroxylamine-treated cells were prepared, they also displayed higher uptake activities of serine, proline, glutamate, and threonine than those of normal membranes. When hydroxylamine-treated cells were incubated with chloramphenicol, at concentrations which almost completely inhibited protein synthesis, the composition of phosphatidylserine decreased with a concomitant increase in that of phosphatidylethanolamine. The phospholipid composition of these cells incubated for 5 h with chloramphenicol became almost normal. Membranes vesicles prepared from such cells displayed reduced uptake activities, which were close to those of normal vesicles. These results were interpreted as indicating the altered transport activities due to the altered phospholipid composition.