Journal of Bacteriology, July 2004, p. 4417-4421, Vol. 186, No. 13
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.13.4417-4421.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
BioCentrum Amsterdam, Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, Vrije Universiteit, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Received 20 February 2004/ Accepted 23 March 2004
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N. europaea acquires all its free energy from the oxidation of NH3 to NO2 via the intermediate hydroxylamine (NH2OH), which is catalyzed by the enzymes ammonia monooxygenase and hydroxylamine oxidoreductase (HAO) (23). While this nitrification pathway is relatively well characterized, the structure, functioning, and physiological relevance of its putative denitrification pathway(s) still remain largely unknown (1, 2, 15, 19, 20). It has been suggested that the putative denitrification pathway of N. europaea may allow the use of NO2 as an alternative terminal electron acceptor under O2-limiting conditions, facilitating the use of all available O2 for the monooxygenation of NH3 (1, 19). Alternatively, the finding that NirK-deficient cells of N. europaea had a lower tolerance to NO2 suggests that this denitrification enzyme may be recruited to protect the cell against the NO2 produced during NH3 oxidation (2, 20). In the heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria, the toxic NO produced by Nir is maintained at a low concentration by Nor (24). It may be hypothesized that the maintenance of NO homeostasis in N. europaea, which produces NO during nitrification, also involves Nor (16).
In this work, we show that the norCBQD homologues of N. europaea encode a functional Nor that is expressed under fully aerobic conditions. We address the role of this denitrification enzyme in (i) the production of N2O, (ii) the defense against NO and NO2, and (iii) respiration under O2-limiting conditions on the bases of physiological characterizations of a Nor-deficient strain of N. europaea.
The nor homologues of N. europaea. A cluster of genes with high homology to the norCBQD loci of heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria is present in the genome of N. europaea (4) (Fig. 1). In these bacteria, norC encodes a membrane-anchored c-type cytochrome that forms a complex with the major membrane-bound catalytic subunit, which is encoded by norB (10). In Paracoccus denitrificans, norQ and norD encode accessory proteins that are essential for the activation of NorCB (5). The nor gene cluster of N. europaea is flanked by uncharacterized open reading frames and is separated from the nirK gene cluster by 1.15 Mb on the 2.81-Mb chromosome.
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FIG. 1. Schematic representation of the nor gene cluster in wild-type N. europaea and in the Nor-deficient strains. norC starts at genomic position 2163869, and norD ends at genomic position 2166533 (4). Nor-deficient strains were engineered by insertion of the suicide vectors pNORBsu and pNORQsu as indicated. Arrows indicate primers used for construction of the suicide vectors, verification of correct integration, and construction of the complementation vector.
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FIG. 2. Nitric oxide consumption by cells and membrane protein fractions measured under anoxic conditions with a Clark-type electrode with phenazine ethosulfate (PES) as a mediator of ascorbate-derived electrons. Additionally, horse heart cytochrome c was present when assaying membranes. Cells were harvested in the early stationary growth phase and stored at 0°C overnight. The disappearance of NO before the addition of cells or protein represents the background rate of NO consumption via chemical conversion. Arrowheads in a to d mark the addition of cells to a final OD600 of 0.9 (50 µl). The arrowheads in e mark the addition of NorB-deficient cells, NO from a saturated solution, and wild-type cells, respectively. Equal amounts of cells of both strains were added to a combined OD600 of 2.7 (two times, 50 µl). Arrowheads in f to j mark the addition of membrane proteins: wild type (0.17 mg in 20 µl), NorB deficient (0.59 mg in 50 µl), NorQ deficient (0.28 mg, 75 µl), NorB deficient complemented (0.20 mg, 20 µl) (twice), and Fnr deficient (0.28 mg in 75 µl).
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NorCB-dependent NO-consuming activity is present at a constant level throughout growth in aerobic batch cultures. Membrane protein fractions were prepared from cells that had been harvested at various cell densities in order to monitor the level of NorCB activity during exponential growth and in the stationary phase. Aerobic conditions were inferred from the occurrence of exponential growth and confirmed in the early exponential growth phase with a Clark-type electrode (data not shown). The specific NO consumption rates of these membrane preparations, as estimated by linear approximation of the initial rate (3-min interval after the PES-ascorbate-independent NO consumption), did not vary significantly (i.e., between 0.18 ± 0.02 and 0.24 ± 0.02 µmol of NO min1 mg of protein1 [95% confidence interval of activity measurement, n = 3]). Membrane proteins isolated from cells that had been harvested from O2-limited cultures in the linear growth phase (optical density at 600 nm [OD600] of 0.04) consumed NO at a rate of 0.30 ± 0.01 µmol of NO min1 mg of protein1 (95% confidence interval of activity measurement, n = 3). O2-limited growth was achieved by shaking at 70 rpm instead of 175 rpm. Under these conditions, the O2 concentration, as measured with a Clark-type electrode during linear growth, was below the detection level of approximately 1 µM. Membrane protein fractions prepared from NorB-deficient cells that had been harvested at various cell densities all exhibited the described impaired NO consumption kinetics (data not shown).
Fnr is not essential for expression of NorCB-dependent NO-consuming activity. The putative fnr gene of N. europaea appears to encode an Fnr protein that contains four conserved cysteine residues, which are involved in the ligation of a [4Fe-4S] cluster that is specific for the O2-responsive Fnr proteins (14). The fnr gene of N. europaea is not localized in the vicinity of the nir or nor gene clusters on the chromosome (separated by 0.31 and 0.85 Mb, respectively). Membrane preparations of cells in which the putative fnr gene had been disrupted by insertion of a suicide vector displayed wild-type NO consumption kinetics (Fig. 2j).
NorB-deficient cells still produce N2O. To address the role of Nor in the production of N2O by N. europaea, the concentration of this gas was determined in the headspace of sealed 150-ml batch cultures in 500-ml bottles after 3 days of incubation. The NorB-deficient strain produced amounts of N2O similar to that for wild-type cells (i.e., 31 ± 5 µM and 40 ± 10 µM [95% confidence interval of replicate cultures, n = 3], respectively).
Wild-type and NorB-deficient cells have similar growth characteristics under O2 limitation. In aerobic batch cultures, NorB-deficient cells had wild-type growth characteristics (Fig. 3b and c, upper curves). To assess whether NorCB is involved in the optimization of the O2 requirements of N. europaea during O2 limitation, the growth characteristics of wild-type and NorB-deficient cells were determined under O2-limiting growth conditions. Both wild-type and NorB-deficient cells displayed identical, nonexponential, transiently linear growth and reached similar maximal cell densities under these conditions (Fig. 3a).
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FIG. 3. (a) Growth curves of cells of wild-type and NorB-deficient strains of N. europaea during cultivation in O2-limited batch cultures. Squares, wild-type cells; circles, NorB-deficient cells. Error bars indicate the 95% confidence interval of replicate cultures (n = 3). (b and c) Growth curves of wild-type (b) and NorB-deficient (c) cells of N. europaea in aerobic batch cultures to which 0 (squares), 50 (circles), 100 (triangles), and 200 (diamonds) µM SNP was added at a t of 20 h. Arrowheads indicate the addition of SNP. Error bars indicate the 95% confidence interval of replicate cultures (n = 3).
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Relatively high NO tolerance does not depend on NorCB. With the aim to address a possible role of Nor in the defense against NO, the effects of externally added NO on respiration of wild-type and NorB-deficient cells, harvested in the mid-exponential growth phase, were determined in an oxygraph. The addition of 15 µl of NO-saturated buffer (40 mM KH2PO4, 3.5 mM NaH2PO4, adjusted with NaOH to pH 8.0), resulting in a final concentration of 30 µM NO, had no significant effects on the NH3-dependent O2 consumption of either strain (data not shown). In order to provide a point of reference for this particular experimental setup, the experiment was also performed with wild-type and NorB-deficient cells of the heterotrophic denitrifying bacterium P. denitrificans (5, 6). The concentration of P. denitrificans cells that was used was approximately four times higher than that of N. europaea, OD600 of 0.24 and 0.06, respectively. P. denitrificans was cultured under O2-limiting conditions in the presence of NO3, to ensure the expression of both Nor and terminal oxidase (21). In contrast to N. europaea, the addition of 15 µl of NO-saturated buffer resulted in a transient inhibition of the succinate-dependent O2 uptake by both wild-type and NorB-deficient cells of P. denitrificans (data not shown). The duration of inhibition of the NorB-deficient cells was approximately twofold longer than was observed for wild-type cells.
A possible role of Nor in the protection of growing cells of N. europaea against NO was studied in cultures of wild-type and NorB-deficient cells to which increasing amounts of the NO-releasing agent sodium nitroprusside (SNP) were added in the early exponential growth phase (Fig. 3b and c). SNP had negative effects on the growth rate and the maximal cell density of both wild-type and NorB-deficient cells. NorB-deficient cells were only affected to a larger extent than wild-type cells at the highest concentration (200 µM), as judged by a significantly lower growth rate of the NorB-deficient cells after the addition of SNP and the larger negative effect on the maximal cell density reached.
Conclusions. Based on the findings presented, we conclude that cells of N. europaea express a membrane-bound NorCB during fully aerobic nitrification. The specific NorCB activity in membrane preparations was comparable to those reported for the heterotrophic denitrifying bacterium P. denitrificans during denitrifying growth (7). The role of NorCB in N. europaea that was revealed in this study differed from that expected on the basis of extrapolation of the roles of its homologues in the heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria. NorCB was not the only N2O-producing mechanism present in N. europaea. The relative contributions of NorCB and the alternative N2O-producing pathway(s) cannot be deduced from the observations because of possible pleiotropic effects of the mutation of norB. NorCB did not play a vital role in the tolerance of N. europaea to NO2 or NO produced during growth on NH3. The relatively high NO tolerance was only compromised by the inactivation of norB in the presence of high concentrations of SNP, suggesting that an alternative NO-consuming mechanism might be present. NorCB did not appear to play a crucial role during oxygen-limited growth. Taken together, the findings reveal an inorganic nitrogen metabolism of N. europaea that is complex in terms of sources and sinks of gaseous nitrogen oxides. Several lines of biochemical evidence put forward HAO as an important candidate for a role in the production of N2O by N. europaea. HAO was demonstrated to produce NO and N2O during the oxidation of NH2OH in vitro (11, 12). More recently, HAO has been described to catalyze the reduction and oxidation of NO in vitro (3, 9).
We are grateful to M. van der Velde, J. de Almeida Mourisco, and W. N. M. Reijnders for excellent technical assistance, S. de Vries and M. J. F. Strampraad for facilitating the Nor activity measurements, and A. M. Laverman for facilitating the N2O analyses.
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