Characterization of porins from the outer membrane of Salmonella typhimurium. 1. Chemical analysis.

The three species of channel-forming outer membrane proteins, porins, have been purified to homogeneity from mutant strains of Salmonella typhimurium which produce single species of porin. Purification was by stepwise solubilization with dodecylsulfate or guanidine thiocyanate, gel filtration, and preparative gel electrophoresis. Amino acid compositions and tryptic peptide maps of the three species of porins showed close resemblance, but at the same time clear differences among them. The number of amino acid residues in the porins purified from the strains SH5551, SH6377 and SH6017 were 361, 354 and 345, and their calculated molecular weights 39800, 39300 and 38000, respectively. Amino-terminal and carboxyl-terminal amino acids in all three species of porins appeared to be alanine and phenylalanine, respectively. Neither half-cystine nor hexosamine was found in these preparation of porins. The isoelectric points of porins from the strains SH5551, SH6377 and SH6017, determined by isoelectric focusing, showed slight differences from each other. These results, and the genetic experiments from another laboratory, suggest that the three species of porins in Salmonella typhimurium are distinct polypeptides, probably coded for by distinct structural genes, which might have been derived from the same ancestral gene.