The Glycogen-Bound Polyphosphate Kinase from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius Is Actually a Glycogen Synthase

Abstract

Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is obtained by the polymerization of the terminal phosphate of ATP through the action of the enzyme polyphosphate kinase (PPK). Despite the presence of polyP in every living cell, a gene homologous to that of known PPKs is missing from the currently sequenced genomes of Eukarya, Archaea, and several bacteria. To further study the metabolism of polyP in Archaea, we followed the previously published purification procedure for a glycogen-bound protein of 57 kDa with PPK as well as glycosyl transferase (GT) activities from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius (R. Skórko, J. Osipiuk, and K. O. Stetter, J. Bacteriol. 171:5162-5164, 1989). In spite of using recently developed specific enzymatic methods to analyze polyP, we could not reproduce the reported PPK activity for the 57-kDa protein and the polyP presumed to be the product of the reaction most likely corresponded to glycogen-bound ATP under our experimental conditions. Furthermore, no PPK activity was found associ