Azospirillum brasilense PII proteins GlnB and GlnZ do not form heterotrimers and GlnB shows a unique trimeric uridylylation pattern

In many organisms, nitrogen metabolism is co-ordinated by a class of highly conserved proteins from the PII family. In Gram-negative bacteria PII proteins are trimers that can be covalently modified by uridylylation according to the cellular nitrogen status. Several prokaryotes have more than one gene that code for PII proteins. In Escherichia coli it was shown that the two PII proteins (GlnB and GlnK) can form heterotrimers and it was suggested that heterotrimerization of PII proteins could be widespread in Bacteria. The nitrogen-fixing plant-associative bacteria Azospirillum brasilense code for two PII proteins, GlnB and GlnZ. The expression of glnB and glnZ genes are induced under nitrogen fixing conditions and these proteins control both the expression and the activity of the nitrogenase enzyme. Here we show that unlike E. coli PII proteins, A. brasilense GlnB and GlnZ, do not form heterotrimers in vitro. Our data also suggest that A. brasilense GlnB shows a unique uridylylation pattern.