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Transcript
FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
www.fems-microbiology.org
Molecular evidence for the aerobic expression of nifJ, encoding
pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, in cyanobacteria
Oliver Schmitz, Joachim Gurke, Hermann Bothe *
Botanical Institute, The University of Cologne, Gyrhofstr. 15, D-50923 Ko«ln, Germany
Received 27 October 2000; received in revised form 18 December 2000; accepted 18 December 2000
Abstract
Pyruvate:ferredoxin (flavodoxin) oxidoreductase (PFO, EC 1.2.7.1) catalyses the oxidative cleavage of pyruvate and coenzyme A to
acetylcoenzyme A and CO2 with the simultaneous reduction of ferredoxin or flavodoxin. PFO occurs in anaerobes and in some aerobic
archaea and bacteria. For cyanobacteria, activity measurements indicated the occurrence of PFO in heterocystous forms. The completely
sequenced genomes of the unicellular Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and the heterocystous Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 and Nostoc punctiforme
revealed the existence of one PFO (encoded by nifJ) in Synechocystis 6803 and N. punctiforme but two different PFOs, encoded by nifJ1 and
nifJ2, in Anabaena. Sequence comparison now indicates that all cyanobacterial PFOs are more closely related to those of anaerobes than to
those of aerobes. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) experiments show that nifJ is transcribed in the presence of
saturating iron concentrations in aerobically grown cells of the unicellular Synechococcus sp. PCC 6301 and Synechocystis 6803. Both nifJ
genes are transcribed in aerobically grown Anabaena 7120. These findings are corroborated by luciferase reporter gene analysis of nifJ in
Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942. The occurrence of PFO in these cyanobacteria is enigmatic. ß 2001 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords : Ketoacid oxidoreductase; Ferredoxin; Flavodoxin; Nitrogen-¢xation ; Heterocyst
1. Introduction
In the pyruvate clastic reaction [1], PFO catalyses the
oxidative cleavage of pyruvate and coenzyme A to acetylcoenzyme A and CO2 with concomittant reduction of ferredoxin. The enzyme has been described for strictly anaerobic bacteria like Clostridium spp. [1], diverse archaea [2]
and some eukaryotes [3]. In facultative anaerobes like
Klebsiella pneumoniae, PFO is expressed under O2 -exclusion [4]. The enzyme also occurs in the aerobic, osmotolerant Halobacterium [5] and bacteria like Frankia, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Streptomyces coelicolor (see
Fig. 1) where it may be less O2 -sensitive. Depending on
the organism and/or the culture conditions, PFO utilises
ferredoxin or £avodoxin as electron acceptor. In K. pneumoniae, £avodoxin is expressed in parallel with nitrogenase [4]. In Clostridium, £avodoxin is synthesised only
under Fe-de¢ciency, and nitrogenase preferentially utilises
* Corresponding author. Fax: +49 (221) 470 5181;
E-mail : [email protected]
ferredoxin [6]. The same situation also applies to cyanobacteria [7].
The occurrence of PFO in cyanobacteria has been reported years ago [8]. Biochemical measurements with extracts from Anabaena cylindrica showed both a coenzyme
A-dependent cleavage of pyruvate as well as a synthesis of
pyruvate from acetylcoenzyme A and CO2 . This reverse
reaction was strictly dependent on reduced ferredoxin [9].
A synthesis of pyruvate via the pyruvate dehydrogenase
complex (PDH) with NADH as electron donor was not
observed, in accordance with thermodynamic considerations. As the lipoic acid-content was found being too
low for a functional PDH, it was concluded that A. cylindrica cleaves pyruvate by PFO [10]. In contrast, the unicellular Synechococcus 6301 had a high lipoic acid-content.
The reduction of NAD‡ in dependence of pyruvate and
coenzyme A catalysed by PDH was unambiguously demonstrable in extracts of this cyanobacterium [10]. The
biochemical measurements did not allow to conclude
whether Synechococcus 6301 additionally possesses the
PFO.
In 1993, two groups, independently from each other,
published sequences for nifJ encoding PFO in two hetero-
0378-1097 / 01 / $20.00 ß 2001 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 1 0 9 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 5 5 8 - 9
FEMSLE 9767 23-1-01
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O. Schmitz et al. / FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
Fig. 1. Sequence similarities of PFO and related oxidoreductases from bacteria, eukarya and archaea. Representative sequences from di¡erent taxons
were recovered through GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST) and the TIGR microbial database (www.tigr.org). The dendrogram depicts sequence
similarities calculated from a ClustalX1.8 alignment of approximately 400 amino acid positions (see text) corresponding to (1) the N-terminal part of
homodimeric bacterial and eukaryotic pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductases (PFO) and eukaryotic pyruvate:NADP‡ oxidoreductase (PNO) (black,
bold), (2) K-subunits of bacterial and archaeal tetrameric (a) pyruvate and 2-ketoisovalerate oxidoreductases (POR/VOR; grey, bold) and (b) 2-ketoacid
oxidoreductases (KOR, including KGOR = 2-ketoglutarate oxidoreductases; grey, bold, dashed), (3) the N-terminal part of K-subunits of archaeal
heterodimeric indolepyruvate oxidoreductases (IOR; black) and (4) the C-terminal part of K-subunits of archaeal and bacterial heterodimeric 2-oxoacid
( = 2-ketoacid) oxidoreductases (OOR ; black, dashed). Protein sequences (accession numbers in brackets) were retrieved from the combined SwissProt/
DDBJ/GenBank/EMBL databases. nifJ homologous sequences obtained from ¢nished and ongoing genome sequencing projects were identi¢ed and retrieved through CyanoBase (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/cyano.html); the homepage of the DOE joint genome institute (www.jgi.doe.gov) and the TIGR
microbial database (www.tigr.org).
cystous cyanobacteria. In Anabaena 7120, nifJ was expressed in parallel with £avodoxin under Fe-de¢ciency
[11]. The partially sequenced gene from Anabaena variabilis [12] had only about 75% DNA sequence identity with
nifJ from Anabaena 7120. With other genes from A. variabilis and Anabaena 7120, sequence identities generally
amount to at least 95%, indicating the close relationship
of these strains (GenBank : AJ003195, X99672). Thus it
remained to be shown whether two di¡erent PFOs occur
in heterocystous cyanobacteria. In the meantime, the completely sequenced genome of Synechocystis 6803 [13] re-
vealed the occurrence of one PFO also in this unicellular
cyanobacterium. In addition, the genome of Anabaena
7120 (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/cyano.html) contained sequences for two di¡erent PFOs whereas only one copy is
found in the heterocystous Nostoc punctiforme (www.jgi.
doe.gov).
In the present study, the PFO sequences from cyanobacteria and from other organisms are compared with each
other. Expression of PFOs in unicellular and ¢lamentous
cyanobacteria using RT-PCR and bacterial luciferase as
reporter system is also demonstrated.
FEMSLE 9767 23-1-01
O. Schmitz et al. / FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Culture and growth of cyanobacteria
Cells were grown in BG11 medium supplemented with
nitrate except for the N2 -¢xing Anabaena strains which
were cultivated in BG110 medium [12]. Synechococcus sp.
PCC 6301 ( = Anacystis nidulans SAUG 1402-1) was purchased from the algal collection of the University of Go«ttingen, Germany, A. variabilis was strain ATCC 29413
and Anabaena sp. PCC 7119, Anabaena sp. PCC 7120,
Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and Synechococcus sp. PCC
7942 ( = A. nidulans R2) were from the Pasteur Collection.
Genetically manipulated strains were selected on chloramphenicol (7.5 Wg ml31 ) and/or spectinomycin (20 and 2 Wg
ml31 on plates and in liquid culture, respectively).
2.2. Isolation and sequencing of nifJ from Anabaena 7119
and Synechococcus 6301
Preparation and restriction of genomic DNA has been
described [12]. Using the 3P part of the formerly sequenced
267 bp segment of Anabaena 7119 nifJ [12], an 1.1 kb
product was generated by inverse PCR with SspI-digested
and ligated genomic DNA as template and oligonucleotide
primers gtaccaccgtcggtacagtacccc (CYC1) and gtagcgggtgccgtacatggggcg (CYC2), extending the length of the
nifJ sequence determined for this organism to 1214 bp.
Sequencing was performed using the ABI Prism System
(PE-Applied Biosystems, Weiterstadt, Germany). nifJ
from Synechococcus 6301 was identi¢ed by hybridising a
genomic library (bacteriophage VGEM1-11, Promega,
Mannheim, Germany) with the Anabaena 7119 probe. Labeling of probes and detection of hybridisation signals
were performed with the DIG Labeling and Detection
kit (Roche Diagnostics, Boehringer, Mannheim, Germany).
The sequence data reported for nifJ from Anabaena
7119 and Synechococcus 6301 have been submitted to
the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession
numbers AF307353 and AF307354, respectively.
2.3. RNA isolation, reverse transcription (RT) and PCR
Total RNA from cyanobacteria was isolated using the
RNeasy Kit of Qiagen, Hilden, Germany [14]. Isolated
RNA was treated with DNase and cDNA was prepared
as described [14]. Primers used for the ¢rst strand synthesis
(2 pmol for each RT reaction) were sequence-speci¢c in
the case of Synechococcus 6301 (AN-R : ggcgctgtcgattaggtcgaag) and Anabaena 7120 (c377R: attttggggactggggact,
= nifJ1-speci¢c; c244R: accaccaacaactttaggtaactg, = nifJ2speci¢c). A primer recognising nifJ from cyanobacteria,
based on multisequence alignments, was used in the case
of Synechococcus 6803 : NifJA3 = tc(a/g)tg(a/g)ga(a/g/t)gt(a/g)cg(a/g)aa(a/g)cca. The RT reaction was followed by
99
PCR, using the same (reverse) primers as well as the forward primers AN-F, gcaggctttacccgcaacagtc (Synechococcus 6301); c377F, ggtgcaaacccttactacaac (Anabaena 7120,
nifJ1); c244F, caacagcagaacgagtcatcg (Anabaena 7120,
nifJ2) and NifJA1, attgc(c/t)attta(c/t)cc(g/c)at(c/t)ac(a/c/t)cc(a/c/t)tc (Synechocystis 6803). Ampli¢cation by PCR was
performed either with 2 Wl of the cDNA obtained by RT,
2 Wl of the control (no RTase), 2^5 ng genomic DNA or in
the absence of template in a 50 Wl assay (100 pmol of each
primer, 2 mM MgSO4 , 2 U Taq polymerase from Promega) after 4 min at 95³C running 30 cycles (30 s at 92³C,
1 min at 55³C, 1 min at 72³C) and a ¢nal elongation step
(7 min at 72³C). PCR products (10 Wl of each reaction)
were separated on 1% agarose gels.
2.4. Construction of luxAB reporter strains and luciferase
measurements
A 700 bp PstI/BamHI fragment (V350 bp of the 5P
untranslated nifJ region of Synechococcus 6301) was subcloned into PstI/BamHI-cut pBluescript1IISK(3). The
complete insert was further subcloned by XbaI/XhoI restriction and fused to the promoterless bacterial luciferase
genes luxAB from Vibrio harveyi by introducing the nifJ
promoter region into the XbaI/SalI-cut multicloning site
of pAM1580 (see http://ACS.TAMU.EDU/Vssg7231/
ns2.html). This pBR322-based vector is routinely used to
target speci¢c DNA to the so-called neutral site II of the
Synechococcus 7942 chromosome via homologous recombination [15]. Strain AMC395 (SpR ), a derivative of Synechococcus 7942 carrying the luxCDE genes driven by the
psbAI promoter in neutral site I of the chromosome and
thus expressing the synthetase catalysing the formation of
the luciferase long-chain aldehyde substrate, and neutral
site II vector pAM1580 were kindly supplied by Susan
Golden, Texas ApM University. For transformation experiments, exponentially growing AMC395 (20 ml) was
centrifuged (3000Ug, 5 min), the pellet was washed with
10 ml NaCl (10 mM), recentrifuged and suspended in 1 ml
BG11 medium. Plasmid DNA (0.2^0.5 Wg) was added to
300 Wl cell suspension. Cells were selected on antibiotics
(Cm, Sp)-containing agar plates for 7^10 days.
For luciferase measurements, cells grown in BG11 medium under continuous gassing with air/CO2 (98/2, by vol)
up to an OD750 of 0.5^0.8, were diluted to an OD between
0.08 and 0.4 and grown for 18 h (¢nal OD: 0.13^0.65).
Cell suspension (200 Wl) was added to 200 Wl BG11 medium and kept in the dark (3 min) prior to measuring in
vivo bioluminescence for ¢ve consecutive 30 s intervals in
a BIOLUMAT LB 9500 luminometer (Berthold, Wildbad,
Germany).
2.5. Sequence comparisons and alignment of PFO with
other ketoacid oxidoreductases
Protein sequences were aligned using ClustalX (http://
FEMSLE 9767 23-1-01
100
O. Schmitz et al. / FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
www.csc.¢/molbio/progs/clustalw). The dendrogram inferred from the alignment was generated using TreeView1.6
(http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/treeview.html).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Two nifJ genes coding for pyruvate :ferredoxin
oxidoreductases occur in ¢lamentous Anabaena spp.
whereas one is demonstrable in unicellular species
Previously [12], 329 and 267 bp internal segments of nifJ
were characterised from A. variabilis and Anabaena 7119,
respectively. Now an 1.1 kb nifJ probe, containing part of
the earlier characterised 267 bp segment, was generated by
inverse PCR from Anabaena 7119 and used in hybridisation experiments of EcoRV/HindIII-digested genomic
DNA from A. variabilis. Two hybridisation signals were
obtained at 3.5 kb and 3 kb, corresponding to two groups
of V-clones of an A. variabilis genomic library (not shown).
This already indicated the existence of an additional nifJ
copy in A. variabilis. The completely sequenced genome of
Anabaena 7120 contains two nifJ genes, one of which had
been described earlier ([11], hereafter named nifJ1). The
second copy (nifJ2, located on contig c244, www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/cyano.html), is more closely related to the
partial nifJ sequences from A. variabilis and Anabaena
7119 than to nifJ1 from Anabaena 7120. Using the Anabaena 7119 nifJ probe, this gene has been identi¢ed and
partially sequenced (615 bp) from Synechococcus 6301. No
indications for the existence of additional nifJ copies were
obtained for Synechococcus 6301 and Synechocystis 6803,
in accordance with sequence data available for the latter
organism (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/cyano.html).
3.2. Comparison of cyanobacterial PFO sequences
An alignment of the deduced partial PFO sequence
from Synechococcus 6301 with PFOs from other cyanobacteria, corresponding to amino acid positions 308^512
of the Synechocystis 6803 sequence, revealed that PFO
from Synechococcus 6301 shares 59.8% (67.1%) and
65.2% (72.0%) sequence identity (similarity) with PFO1
and PFO2 from Anabaena 7120, respectively (not docu-
mented). Sequence identity (similarity) between both
PFOs from Anabaena 7120 is only slightly higher : 68.3%
(78.0%).
As observed previously, the sequenced region may contain strain-speci¢c insertions [11]. In Anabaena 7120, nifJ1
contains ¢ve tandemly repeated copies of the heptamer
CCCCAGT. The gene of N. punctiforme contains an
even larger insert (69 bp), coding for a glycine-rich stretch.
The tandemly repeated heptamers are not present. Only
three additional bases are inserted in nifJ2 of Anabaena
7120 and 7119. An insert in this region is completely absent in nifJ of Synechocystis 6803 and Synechococcus 6301.
3.3. A dendrogram for PFO and other ketoacid
oxidoreductases from archaea, bacteria and eukarya
Most PFOs of mesophilic bacteria and of eukaryotic
protozoa are homodimers, whereas enzymes catalysing
the oxidative cleavage of pyruvate and/or other ketoacids
of hyperthermophilic archaea have a four-subunit structure. A number of organisms, mostly thermophilic archaeal taxons (Pyrococcus, Archaeoglobus, Methanobacterium),
possess tetrameric pyruvate/2-ketoisovalerate/2-ketoacid
(POR/VOR/KOR) as well as heterodimeric indolepyruvate
oxidoreductases (IOR, see legend to Fig. 1). Methanobacterium and Thermotoga are the only known species, which
^ in addition to POR, KOR (and IOR) ^ also contain a
heterodimeric 2-oxoacid ( = 2-ketoacid) oxidoreductase
(OOR). The latter was described for the halophilic Halobacterium, other aerobic archaea (e.g. Aeropyrum) and
bacterial species (Thermus, Thermotoga, several actinobacteria). The heterodimeric OOR is related to homodimeric
PFO and tetrameric POR/VOR/KOR. Sequence alignments performed for only some of these oxidoreductase
groups are scattered in the literature [2,16^18]. Most of
the tetrameric and dimeric oxidoreductase-containing species do not possess a homodimeric PFO. Campylobacter
jejuni is an exception as it contains both PFO and a tetrameric oxidoreductase (KOR, Fig. 1). The amino acid sequences corresponding to residues 1^398 in the Synechocystis 6803 PFO are su¤ciently similar in all mentioned
oxidoreductases to perform an extensive sequence comparison (Fig. 1). The dendrogram depicts that all cyanobacterial PFOs cluster together, being closely related to PFO
from Rhodospirillum rubrum (GenBank : X77515) and oth-
Fig. 2. Agarose gel analysis of polymerase chain reaction products ampli¢ed by RT-PCR using nifJ-speci¢c primers. A: Synechococcus sp. PCC 6301 ;
B: Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Lane 1: positive controls with genomic DNA as template. Lane 2: negative controls (no addition of reverse transcriptase prior to PCR reaction). Lane 3: cDNA templates. M: 100 bp ladder from Gibco/BRL.
FEMSLE 9767 23-1-01
O. Schmitz et al. / FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
101
er anaerobes and more distantly related to those from
aerobes. The present alignment (Fig. 1) con¢rms [18]
that PFO sequences from Q-proteobacteria split into two
clusters (Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli versus K.
pneumoniae and Enterobacter agglomerans). Some organisms possess two or more di¡erent PFOs (e.g. Clostridium
pasteurianum contains three PFOs of the homodimeric
type, see www.tigr.org). It had been noted earlier that
the eukaryotic PFOs are of monophyletic origin [18] and
that pyruvate:NADP‡ oxidoreductase (PNO) in mitochondria of Euglena gracilis evolved by linking a homodimeric PFO and a £avoenzyme by gene fusion [19].
3.4. nifJ is expressed in aerobically grown cyanobacteria
under non-Fe-limitation
Two pairs of speci¢c primers were developed for nifJ
from Synechococcus 6301 and Synechocystis 6803 and for
each of the two nifJ genes from Anabaena 7120. RT-PCR
experiments showed that all these genes are transcribed
under aerobic growth conditions (Figs. 2 and 3). To further study nifJ expression in Synechococcus 6301, the putative nifJ promoter region was fused to luxAB and introduced into the chromosome of strain AMC395 (LuxCDE
expressing derivative of Synechococcus 7942). Although
the two Synechococcus strains 6301 and 7942 are very
closely related genetically, Synechococcus 7942 shows a
much higher transformability than Synechococcus 6301
and is thus preferentially chosen to study the phenotypic
expression of Synechococcus 6301 genes [15]. In vivo luciferase activity of strain SX3 (nifJ: :luxAB) was found to be
directly correlated with cell density (OD 0.13^0.65, 750
nm) in exponentially growing cultures and was much higher than in the control strain 1580/395 (promoterless luxAB, Fig. 4). This approach also showed that nifJ is expressed in the unicellular Synechococcus 7942, grown
aerobically. However, the expression level is low in comparison to that from the bidirectional hydrogenase promoters hoxE and hoxU, which is 2^10-fold higher (O.
Schmitz, unpublished).
Fig. 3. Expression of both nifJ genes in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120. Agarose gel analysis of polymerase chain reaction products ampli¢ed by
RT-PCR using primers speci¢c for A: nifJ2 (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/
cyano.html, contig c244) and B: nifJ1 [11]. cDNA templates were generated from total RNA prepared from N2 -grown Anabaena 7120 cultures.
Lane 1: negative control (no template added). Lane 2: positive controls
with genomic DNA as template. Lane 3: negative controls (no addition
of reverse transcriptase prior to PCR reaction). Lane 4: cDNA templates. M: 100 bp ladder from Gibco/BRL.
Fig. 4. Cell density-dependent expression of nifJ in Synechococcus sp.
PCC 7942 monitored by in vivo bacterial luciferase activity. The
PnifJ::luxAB reporter strain SX3 (F) was used. As a control, the promoterless luxAB construct 1580/395 was taken (7).
All these aerobic cultures had been grown under saturating Fe-amounts. We know from long reaching experimental experience [7] that the cells do not contain £avodoxin under these conditions. According to [11], nifJ1 is
expressed only under Fe-de¢ciency in Anabaena 7120 as
shown by Northern blot experiments. However, nifJ was
originally isolated from a heterocyst-speci¢c cDNA library
constructed from a non-Fe-de¢cient culture [11]. The latter
¢nding is corroborated by the present study in which both
nifJ genes were shown to be transcribed under normal
growth conditions by means of the more sensitive RTPCR approach. However, nifJ transcription is enhanced
when cells are kept overnight in a medium with only
30% of the normal Fe-content (J. Gurke, preliminary
data).
3.5. The physiological role of PFOs in cyanobacteria is
enigmatic
PFO from many organisms has been reported to be O2 sensitive. It remains to be shown how PFO can function in
aerobic, O2 -evolving cyanobacteria. Heterocysts of cyanobacteria may provide an anaerobic compartment for PFO
to function. In these cells, reductants to nitrogenase appear to be mainly generated via glucose-6-P, the hexosemonophosphate shunt, NADPH, NADPH:ferredoxin oxidoreductase and a special type of ferredoxin encoded by
fdxH. Mutants in fdxH, however, can still perform N2 ¢xation with signi¢cant rates [20]. Therefore, an alternative pathway with £avodoxin as an intermediate could
exist in heterocysts. The hydroquinone form of all £avodoxins transfers electrons to nitrogenase. A reduction of
£avodoxin beyond the semiquinone state (Eo PV3500 mV
for the couple fully reduced/semiquinone by NAD(P)H,
Eo P = 3320 mV for NAD(P)H/NAD(P)‡ ) is thermodynamically non-feasible. When properly reduced to the hydroquinone state, cyanobacterial £avodoxin is able to donate electrons to nitrogenase [7] as in other organisms [4].
FEMSLE 9767 23-1-01
102
O. Schmitz et al. / FEMS Microbiology Letters 195 (2001) 97^102
Due to the high Fe-demand for nitrogenase biosynthesis,
heterocysts may be Fe-limited and may therefore synthesise £avodoxin. The pathway involving pyruvate, PFO,
£avodoxin, nitrogenase is thermodynamically feasible
and o¡ers an alternative [11].
Outside of heterocysts, PFO has a de¢ned function in
fermentative cells. However, fermentation in cyanobacteria is exceptional and restricted to few species which thrive
in special habitats [21]. The unicellular and ¢lamentous
forms mentioned above are obligate autotrophs or have
at best limited fermentative capabilities. The Synechocystis
6803 genome contains sequences for the fermentative enzymes phosphotransacetylase and acetate kinase which,
surprisingly, may contribute to ATP generation. In addition to PFO, the genomes of Synechocystis 6803, Anabaena 7120 and N. punctiforme contain genes coding for
PDH, although the enzyme activity has been reported
only for unicellular cyanobacteria [9].
In the present study, transcription of nifJ has been detected in Synechococcus 6301. The failure to detect nifJ in
Synechococcus 6301 in our preceding publication [12]
exempli¢es how cautious negative molecular results should
be interpreted. It remains to be shown whether nifJ transcription is accompanied by the synthesis of an active PFO
in aerobically growing cyanobacteria. Conclusive experiments have not been performed with respect to the O2 sensitivity of PFO in cyanobacteria. Mutant analysis
would be a proper tool to resolve the function(s) of the
enzyme in cyanobacteria, albeit such studies might be aggravated by the observation that mutants often do not
show distinct phenotypes, as described for mutants impaired in bidirectional hydrogenase [22] or FdxH [20].
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
Acknowledgements
[17]
This work was kindly supported by a grant from the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
[18]
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