Uptake of [14C]-Neu5Ac was not stimulated by Na+ for cells expressing NanT and in fact was inhibited slightly (Fig. 4a). In contrast, uptake in the absence of Na+ was minimal for cells Selleck Etoposide expressing the STM1128 and SiaPQM transporters, but was stimulated by the addition of Na+ (Fig. 4b and c), demonstrating

Na+ dependence for these two transporters. For both the SSS and TRAP transporters, the specificity for Na+ was demonstrated by observing that neither Li+ nor K+ could restore Neu5Ac uptake (not shown). However, the presence of added Li+ or K+ had the same effect on NanT-mediated transport as that observed for Na+, suggesting that the increased ionic strength is the most probable cause of the apparent inhibitory effect of Na+. We were able to demonstrate the obligate Na+ requirement of the SSS and TRAP transporters by comparing cultures on solid minimal BAY 73-4506 research buy medium containing Neu5Ac and either sodium or potassium salts (Fig. 4d). Secondary carriers are driven by gradients and hence are, by definition, reversible. One frequently observed phenomenon of uptake via secondary carriers is that cells can be

forced to exchange a preinternalized substrate upon addition of excess extracellular substrate (Poolman & Konings, 1993). Examination of this phenomenon, the so-called ‘cold chase’ experiment, revealed ID-8 that preinternalized [14C]-Neu5Ac was removed from

SEVY1 pES41 (STM1128+) cells by addition of 1 mM exogenous Neu5Ac, but not by a similar addition of water (Fig. 5). This is consistent with the behaviour of a secondary carrier such as NanT and differs from the SBP-dependent secondary carrier SiaPQM (Mulligan et al., 2009). Bacterial genome sequencing has revealed the presence of sialic acid utilization genes in a wide range of bacteria from human pathogens to marine bacteria. In this study, we have used a ΔnanT strain of E. coli to characterize two known and one putative sialic acid transporter genes from bacterial genomes, providing for the first time experimental evidence that a member of the SSS family of transporters, the STM1128 protein, can transport Neu5Ac. The STM1128 transporter appears to be a typical member of the SSS (TC 2.A.21) family of secondary carriers in that its activity is dependent on Na+ and it is a reversible transporter. Although we have not investigated the exact specificity of this particular SSS transporter in detail, the observations that homologous SSS transporters are predicted to be the only route for sialic acid acquisition in some bacteria (Fig.