Purification and Characterization of Extracellular and Intracellular Glutamine Synthetases from Mycobacterium bovis BCG

Slow-growing pathogenic mycobacterium species, including Mycobacterium bovis BCG, secrete a large amount of glutamine synthetase into culture media. Extracellular and intracellular glutamine synthetases were purified from M. bovis BCG. While the native molecular weights of both glutamine synthetases were estimated to be 370.2 kDa, those of the subunits were 61.7 kDa, indicating that the native forms were composed of 6 subunits. The enzymes showed a hhigh thermal stability and high degree of sequence similarity with the glutamine synthetase from M. tuberculosis in the N-terminal amino acid sequence. Western blotting analysis indicated that the antibodies prepared against both the extracellular and intracellular enzymes exhibited common antigen determinants.