Previously, the 126-kDa Bordetella pertussis CyaA pore-forming/hemolysin (CyaA-Hly) domain was shown to retain its hemolytic activity causing lysis of susceptible erythrocytes. Here, we have succeeded in producing, at large quantity and high purity, the His-tagged CyaA-Hly domain over-expressed in Escherichia coli as a soluble hemolytically-active form. Quantitative assays of hemolysis against sheep erythrocytes revealed that the purified CyaA-Hly domain could function cooperatively by forming an oligomeric pore in the target cell membrane with a Hill coefficient of ~3. When the CyaA-Hly toxin was incorporated into planar lipid bilayers (PLBs) under symmetrical conditions at 1.0 M KCl, 10 mM HEPES buffer (pH 7.4), it produced a clearly resolved single channel with a maximum conductance of ~35 pS. PLB results also revealed that the CyaA-Hly induced channel was unidirectional and opened more frequently at higher negative membrane potentials. Altogether, our results first provide more insights into pore-forming characteristics of the CyaA-Hly domain as being the major pore-forming determinant of which the ability to induce such ion channels in receptor-free membranes could account for its cooperative hemolytic action on the target erythrocytes.

The Bordetella pertussis CyaA-hemolysin (CyaA-Hly) domain was previously demonstrated to be an important determinant for hemolysis against target erythrocytes and ion-channel formation in planar lipid bilayers (PLBs). Here, net-charge variations in the pore-lining helix of thirteen related RTX cytolysins including CyaA-Hly were revealed by amino acid sequence alignments, reflecting their different degrees of hemolytic activity. To analyze possible functional effects of net-charge alterations on hemolytic activity and channel formation of CyaA-Hly, specific mutations were made at Gln⁵⁷⁴ or Glu⁵⁸¹ in its pore-lining α3 of which both residues are highly conserved Lys in the three highly active RTX cytolysins (i.e., Escherichia coli α-hemolysin, Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae toxin, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans leukotoxin). All six constructed CyaA-Hly mutants that were over-expressed in E. coli as 126 kDa His-tagged soluble proteins were successfully purified via immobilized Ni²⁺-affinity chromatography. Both positive-charge substitutions (Q574K, Q574R, E581K, E581R) and negative-charge elimination (E581Q) appeared to increase the kinetics of toxin-induced hemolysis while the substitution with a negatively-charged side-chain (Q574E) completely abolished its hemolytic activity. When incorporated into PLBs under symmetrical conditions (1.0 M KCl, pH 7.4), all five mutant toxins with the increased hemolytic activity produced clearly-resolved single channels with higher open probability and longer lifetime than the wild-type toxin, albeit with a half decrease in their maximum conductance. Molecular dynamics simulations for 50 ns of a trimeric CyaA-Hly pore model comprising three α2-loop-α3 transmembrane hairpins revealed a significant role of the positive charge at both target positions in the structural stability and enlarged diameter of the simulated pore. Altogether, our present data have disclosed functional contributions of positively-charged side-chains substituted at positions Gln⁵⁷⁴ and Glu⁵⁸¹ in the pore-lining α3 to the enhanced hemolytic activity and ion-channel opening of CyaA-Hly that actually mimics the highly-active RTX (repeat-in-toxin) cytolysins.