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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2001, p. 4643-4647, Vol. 183, No. 15
Department of Bacteriology, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Received 6 March 2001/Accepted 16 May 2001
Rhodobacter sphaeroides cells containing an in-frame
deletion within ccmA lack detectable soluble and
membrane-bound c-type cytochromes and are unable to grow
under conditions where these proteins are required. Only strains
merodiploid for ccmABCDG were found after attempting to
generate cells containing either a ccmG null mutation or a
ccmA allele that should be polar on to expression of
ccmBCDG, suggesting that CcmG has another important role in R. sphaeroides.
Because of their vital role in
energy generation, there is considerable interest in determining how
cytochromes bind their essential heme cofactor. Among cytochromes,
c-type cytochromes are unique because heme is covalently
attached to two cysteine thiolates of the polypeptide
(22). From analyzing a series of genes (ccm)
that are required for c-type cytochrome maturation (13, 31), it appears that a c-type cytochrome
precursor protein and heme are translocated across the cytoplasmic
membrane by the general export pathway and some combination of CcmABCD,
respectively. Once exported, the cysteine thiolates at the
c-type cytochrome heme attachment site are believed to form
an intramolecular disulfide bond that must be reduced prior to covalent
heme attachment (13, 31). CcmG is proposed to act in a
pathway which facilitates the reduction of this disulfide bond because
it contains a pair of redox active thiols (26) and has
amino acid sequence similarity to disulfide oxidoreductases in the
thioredoxin family (13, 31). The fact that some Ccm
mutants have defects in assembly of heme a-containing
proteins (19) or iron chelator production (9)
underscores the importance of defining whether these proteins participate in other processes.
To assess the role of Rhodobacter sphaeroides Ccm proteins,
we made mutations within the ccmABCDG locus. This
facultative phototroph uses c-type cytochromes to generate
energy when growing by aerobic respiration, by photosynthesis, or by
anaerobic respiration (4, 16, 17). R. sphaeroides CcmA is involved in c-type cytochrome
maturation since a nonpolar mutation in ccmA caused the loss
of this class of electron carrier and an inability to grow under
conditions when these proteins are required to generate energy.
However, CcmG could have other roles in R. sphaeroides since
strains containing a polar insertion in ccmG or a mutation in ccmA that should be polar on to expression of
ccmBCDG were not isolated.
Growth and genetic procedures.
R. sphaeroides was
grown at 30°C in Sistrom's medium A (3, 28) containing
spectinomycin (25 µg/ml), kanamycin (25 µg/ml), or tetracycline (1 µg/ml) when necessary. Sistrom's medium A containing 7.5% sucrose
was used to screen for sucrose sensitivity. Escherichia coli
was grown at 37°C in Luria-Bertani medium (24) with
appropriate combinations of ampicillin (50 µg/ml), spectinomycin (25 µg/ml), kanamycin (25 µg/ml), tetracycline (10 µg/ml), or
chloramphenicol (50 µg/ml). E. coli DH5
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.15.4643-4647.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Roles for the Rhodobacter sphaeroides
CcmA and CcmG Proteins
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(Table
1) was used as a plasmid host while S17-1
was used for plasmid transfer (2). Mating pairs were
plated aerobically on Sistrom's minimal medium A containing appropriate antibiotics to obtain exconjugants.
TABLE 1.
Bacterial strains and plasmids
Construction of probes and plasmids. Plasmid p2-9 was used to generate Rhodobacter capsulatus ccmABC and ccmCD probes (12). R. sphaeroides ccmABCDG was cloned as an ~9.5-kb PstI restriction endonuclease fragment from pUI8298 (5) into pUC18 (pCSP4) or pRK415 (pRK4S). The ~3.5-kb and ~1.1-kb ccm-containing BamHI restriction endonuclease fragments from pCSP4 were separetely cloned into pUC18 (pCSP20 and pCSP110-1, respectively). For DNA sequencing of the ccm locus (Fig. 1) (GenBank accession number U83136), either lac- or R. sphaeroides-specific primers were used.
A spectinomycin resistance gene (spc) (7) was inserted as a BamHI restriction endonuclease fragment into a unique BglII site of pCSP20 to create the ccmAI::spc allele (pCSP20
1). A
BamHI restriction fragment containing
ccmA1::spc from pCSP20
1 was
purified, made blunt with T4 DNA polymerase I, and ligated into a blunt EcoRI site of the mobilizable suicide plasmid, pSUP202
(pCSP91). To generate ccmG1::spc,
spc (7) was inserted as a SmaI
restriction fragment into a unique BspEI site of pCSP4
(pTP1). A PstI restriction fragment from pPT1 containing
ccmG1::spc was cloned into the
PstI site of pSup202 (pTP2).
Mutant isolation. Suicide plasmids were mated into R. sphaeroides (5) and Spr cells were screened for Tcs under aerobic conditions to identify strains where ccmA1::spc or ccmGI::spc was incorporated by an even number of crossover events (resulting in loss of Tcr).
Strains containing both a wild-type ccmABCDG locus and the ccmA1::spc or ccmG1::spc alleles (Spr, Tcr strains CCMA2 and CCMG2, respectively) were grown aerobically in antibiotic-free liquid medium prior to plating onto antibiotic-free agar in the presence of O2. Colonies were screened for Sp or Tc resistance to determine whether the ccmA1::spc or ccmG::spc alleles (Spr) or the suicide plasmid (Tcr) was present. An in-frame deletion of ccmA codons 10 to 173 (ccmA2) was constructed by a two-step PCR process (17). Primers 5'-CGGCAGTCCGAGATCGATGTGGGCGAGGTTGGTGACGGT (CcmA-5' tail) and 5'-CGGTCAACGAGACGCTGA3' (CcmA-HincII 5') were used to generate a PCR product containing ~0.8 kb of upstream DNA and ccmA codons 1 to 9 fused in-frame to codons 174 to 179. To generate a PCR product that contains ccmA codons 4 to 9 fused in-frame to codons 174 to 210 plus ~0.75 kb of downstream DNA, primers 5'-ACCGTCACCAACCTCGCCCACATCGATCTCGGACTGGCC (CcmA-3' tailed) and 5'-GAATGGGGTCGCGACATC (CcmA-NruI 3') were used. These two PCR products were purified, mixed with CcmA-HincII 5' and CcmA-NruI 3', and used in a second round of PCR to generate a product that contained ccmA2 flanked by ~0.80 kb and ~0.75 kb of upstream and downstream DNA. This product was purified, ligated into the PmeI site of the mobilizable suicide vector, pLO1 (pRC10), sequenced to verify the in-frame deletion of ccmA codons 10 to 173, and mated into R. sphaeroides. A resultant Knr, sucrose-sensitive exconjugant (CCMA3) was grown aerobically in the absence of antibiotics prior to plating ~106 cells aerobically on medium supplemented with 7.5% sucrose. After 5 to 7 days of incubation, sucrose-resistant cells were screened for loss of Knr (from pLO1). DNA from sucrose-resistant, Kns cells was amplified and sequenced to verify that cells contained the ccmA2 allele and no other mutations within this gene.Cytochrome analysis.
Soluble and membrane fractions were
prepared from cultures grown under an atmosphere of 30%
O2, 69% N2, 1% CO2. Protein
concentrations were determined by the Bio-Rad Protein Assay (Hercules,
Calif.). Samples (~400 µg of protein) were heated (70°C) for 10 min in the presence of 5%
-mercaptoethanol and analyzed by sodium
dodecyl sulfate-15% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. After
electrophoresis, c-type cytochromes were visualized by
peroxidase activity (30).
The R. sphaeroides ccmABCDG locus. Hybridization of R. sphaeroides DNA with R. capsulatus ccmABCDG-specific probes identified a related ~9.5-kb PstI restriction fragment in genomic DNA and a wild-type gene library (pU18298). When R. sphaeroides DNA was analyzed by pulse-field electrophoresis (29) and probed with ccmABC, this locus mapped to coordinate ~1500 on chromosome I (data not shown).
The DNA sequence of this region predicts the existence of seven complete open reading frames with codon usage typical of R. sphaeroides genes (Fig. 1). R. sphaeroides CcmA, CcmB, and CcmC each have significant amino acid similarity to other presumed family members (13, 31). Immediately downstream of ccmABC are two other genes (ccmDG) that could also encode Ccm homologues. The function of CcmD is unknown since the deduced polypeptide bears no significant relationship to proteins with known activity. CcmG has significant amino acid similarity to other family members, including a conserved sequence that is related to the active site of thioredoxin-type disulfide oxidoreductases. R. sphaeroides ccmABCDG could be cotranscribed since the initiation and termination codons for ccmAB, ccmCD, and ccmDG overlap (Fig. 1).
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Analysis of R. sphaeroides cells lacking CcmA. To test if these presumed ccm gene products functioned in c-type cytochrome maturation, a strain containing an in-frame deletion within ccmA was generated (CCMA4). DNA sequence showed that this strain contains the ccmA2 allele and that the coding overlap between ccmA and ccmB was preserved, so this mutation should not have a negative effect on expression of any downstream genes. Cells lacking CcmA grew under aerobic but not photosynthetic or anaerobic respiratory conditions, the phenotypes predicted for R. sphaeroides cells that lack c-type cytochromes. Also, growth under these conditions was restored when this mutant contained ccmABCDG on a stable, low-copy-number plasmid.
To test if the ccmA2 allele caused the lack of c-type cytochromes, the accumulation of these proteins was measured in extracts from aerobically grown cells, a condition where R. sphaeroides contains several c-type cytochromes (4, 8, 17). The soluble and membrane proteins of wild-type cells that retain peroxidase activity under denaturing conditions (i.e., c-type cytochromes) were not detected in samples prepared from cells lacking CcmA (Fig. 2). In addition, reduced minus oxidized spectra of soluble and membrane extracts from aerobically grown cells which lack CcmA lacked the absorption feature that is present at ~550 nm in wild-type cells and that is diagnostic of the c-type cytochromes (data not shown; 4, 8, 17).
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Could CcmG have additional roles in R. sphaeroides? To test the role of other products of this locus, we attempted to place the ccmA1::spc allele (which should be polar on to expression of ccmBCDG) in the genome. Of 1,700 Spr cells screened for Tcs (Tcr encoded by the suicide plasmid) under aerobic conditions, only one strain (CcmA1) was identified that had lost the suicide plasmid. Control experiments with a cycA::kan allele on a similar suicide plasmid (7) found that ~5% of the Knr cells (25/500) lost the suicide plasmid (i.e., became Tcs), so the frequency at which CcmA1 was obtained is below what is typically observed when generating null mutations by marker exchange in R. sphaeroides (2). When CcmA1 was analyzed further, it was found to contain a duplication of the ccmABCDG locus, grow via photosynthesis, and contain a normal complement of c-type cytochromes (data not shown). Thus, the only strain from which the suicide plasmid was lost contained a second intact copy of the ccmABCDG locus. We also attempted to place a ccmG1::spc allele in wild-type cells. In this case, when Spr cells were screened for Tcs, none were found among ~3,100 independent Spr isolates.
R. sphaeroides CcmG contains a motif found at the active site of disulfide oxidoreductases in the thioredoxin family. This, plus the ability of the R. capsulatus CcmG homologue to form an intramolecular disulfide bond (26), has been taken as provisional evidence that this protein has disulfide oxidoreductase activity. Thus, it is not surprising that supplementing growth media with low-molecular-weight thiols (cysteine, cystine, 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid, or dithiothreitol) can partially rescue CcmG mutants in some species (6, 15, 20), presumably because these thiols substitute for the proposed disulfide oxidoreductase activity of this protein. Adding cysteine, cystine, or dithiothreitol to media did not enable us to generate a strain lacking CcmG using either ccmG1::spc or the ccmA1::spc allele that should block expression of ccmBCDG (data not shown). The inability to obtain cells lacking CcmG could also reflect a low frequency of recombination in this region. To increase the probability of finding cells that arise from possibly rare recombination events, Tcr cells containing either the ccmA1::spc or ccmG1::spc allele and a wild-type ccmABCDG locus (CCMA2 and CCMG2, respectively) were grown aerobically for ~20 generations in antibiotic-free media prior to screening for markers linked to the ccm mutation (Spr) or the suicide plasmid (Tcr). After screening ~20,000 independent CCMA2 (ccmA1::spc) or ~40,000 CCMG2 (ccmG1::spc) colonies, no cells were found that had lost the suicide plasmid while retaining the mutant ccm allele (Tcs Spr; Table 2). This procedure resulted in the generation of numerous cytochrome c2 mutants using a strain that contains both a cycA1::kan allele and a wild-type cycA gene (Table 2). When the failure to isolate cells lacking CcmG at a reasonable frequency in controlled experiments is considered, it leads us to consider the possibility that this protein plays a role in some other important cellular process.
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What additional functions might CcmG provide R. sphaeroides?
If CcmG is a disulfide oxidoreductase, there
are several reasons why R. sphaeroides might need such a
periplasmic activity for purposes in addition to c-type
cytochrome maturation. R. sphaeroides is believed to require
a functional electron transport chain since it cannot generate
sufficient energy to grow solely by substrate-level phosphorylation
(25). Thus, one possibility is that CcmG also aids
assembly of another respiratory enzyme. Indeed, a Paracoccus denitrificans
CcmG mutant contains reduced levels of the
cytochrome aa3 complex (19). Of the
five terminal oxidases believed to be encoded in the R. sphaeroides genome, four of these enzymes are known or presumed to
contain c- or a-type heme
(http://genome.ornl.gov/microbial/rsph/). Thus, loss of CcmG could
prevent R. sphaeroides from producing sufficient quantities
of one or more terminal oxidases that are required to support
respiration under our laboratory conditions. It is also possible that
CcmG acts in a general pathway for the assembly of other periplasmic
enzymes, in a manner reminiscent of the Dsb-dependent folding of
extracytoplasmic proteins (23). In this regard, there is
evidence that the CcmG homologue of E. coli interacts with
DsbD (10). The cytoplasmic disulfide oxidoreductase, thioredoxin, is essential in R. sphaeroides
(21), so this
-proteobacterium may also have roles for
a periplasmic disulfide oxidoreductase that are more far-reaching
than those in well-studied enteric bacteria (23).
-proteobacteria. CcmA is required for c-type cytochrome maturation, but it appears
that CcmG has a function outside its commonly accepted role in the assembly of these electron carriers. In the future, mutants lacking CcmA or other Ccm proteins will facilitate determining how they function in c-type cytochrome maturation. These strains will
also help identify components of this bacterium's aerobic respiratory chain and dissect the pathway that couples aerobic electron transport to global changes in gene expression (18).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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This work was supported by NIH grant GM37509 to T.J.D.
We thank R. Kranz for supplying R. capsulatus ccm probes and T. Pastjin for help in constructing mutants.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Bacteriology, 312 E. B. Fred Hall, 1550 Linden Dr., University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706. Phone: (608) 262-4663. Fax: (608) 262-9865. E-mail: tdonohue{at}bact.wisc.edu.
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