The YhhN protein of Legionella pneumophila is a Lysoplasmalogenase.

Lysoplasmalogenase catalyzes hydrolytic cleavage of the vinyl-ether bond of lysoplasmalogen to yield fatty aldehyde and glycerophospho-ethanolamine or glycerophospho-choline. We recently purified lysoplasmalogenase from rat liver microsomes and identified the protein as TMEM86B, an integral membrane protein that is a member of the YhhN family found in numerous species of eukaryotes and bacteria. To test the hypothesis that bacterial YhhN proteins also function as lysoplasmalogenase enzymes, we cloned the Lpg1991 gene of Legionella pneumophila, which encodes a 216 amino acid YhhN protein (LpYhhN), and expressed it in Escherichia coli as a C-terminal-GFP-His8-fusion.