Involvement of an unusual mol operon in molybdopterin cofactor biosynthesis in Ralstonia eutropha

In contrast to its parent strain, transposon Tn5-Mob insertion mutant HB6 of the facultative chemoautotroph Ralstonia eutropha was unable to grow organoautotrophically on formate and exhibited no activity of Mo-dependent, membrane-bound formate dehydrogenase (M-FDH) when cultivated mixotrophically on fructose plus formate. The activity of another molybdoenzyme, the soluble, NAD+-linked formate dehydrogenase which is the key enzyme of formate utilization in R. eutropha, was greatly diminished in the mutant. HB6 also lacked the W-dependent M-FDH activities that were newly discovered in organoautotrophically, lithoautotrophically, or mixotrophically grown wildtype cells. However, an additional W-dependent M-FDH activity, observed in heterotrophically grown stationary-phase cells, was present in the mutant although at a considerably reduced level. Sequence analyses of the complementing chromosomal wildtype and the corresponding mutant DNA fragment revealed the transposon insertion to be located in moeA, a gene involved in the biosynthesis of the molybdopterin cofactor (MoCo). Nevertheless, mutant HB6 was able to grow on xanthine as carbon and energy source and with nitrate as nitrogen source. The utilization of these substrates requires the function of the MoCo-containing enzymes xanthine dehydrogenase and assimilatory nitrate reductase, respectively, that were still active in the mutant. A moeA deletion mutant exhibited the same phenotype as that of HB6. The moeA gene belongs to an unusual mol operon consisting of four genes (moeA, moaD, moaE, and moaF) and being constitutively expressed at low level. Unlike MoeA, the large subunit of molybdopterin synthase encoded by moaE is essential for molybdopterin biosynthesis as was evident by the phenotype of a moaE deletion mutant. MoaF is a novel gene product which showed no similarity to proteins with known function but was indispensable for reconstituting organoautotrophic growth in HB6. The findings suggest that MoeA of R. eutropha is differentially involved in the biosynthesis or incorporation of pterin cofactors of/into the various molybdo- and tungstoenzymes.

Identification of cbbBc as an additional distal gene of the chromosomal cbb CO2 fixation operon from Ralstonia eutropha

Ralstonia eutropha (formerly Alcaligenes eutrophus) strain H16 possesses two highly homologous cbb operons encoding most of the Calvin cycle enzymes. One copy of the operon is located on the chromosome, the other on the megaplasmid pHG1 of the organism. Sequence analysis of the region downstream of the presumptive 3'-terminal gene (cbbAc) of the chromosomal operon revealed the presence of an open reading frame comprising 2,274 bp. Evidence is presented that this open reading frame is an additional distal gene (designated cbbBc) of the operon. In contrast to the other genes of the operon, cbbBc is not duplicated in the plasmid-borne operon. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cbbBc product (757 residues, molecular mass 83.17 kDa) showed the highest similarity to the large catalytic subunits of various bacterial formate dehydrogenases (FDH), suggesting that cbbBc might represent a structural FDH gene of R. eutropha. However, the properties of a cbbBc mutant strain indicated that the potential gene product is not related to known FDH of the organism. Transcriptional analysis in the homologous host and heterologous expression in Escherichia coli demonstrated that cbbBc is an active gene, which apparently has no essential function in the autotrophic metabolism of R. eutropha. The gene is a novel member of cbb operons in autotrophic bacteria.

A large deletion in the plastid DNA of the holoparasitic flowering plant Cuscuta reflexa concerning two ribosomal proteins (rpl2, rpl23), one transfer RNA (trnI) and an ORF 2280 homologue

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of a 5.3-kb region of the plastid DNA (ptDNA) from the heterotrophic holoparasitic plant Cuscuta reflexa. The cloned area contains genes for the D1-protein (32-kDa protein; psbA), tRNA(His) (trnH), ORF 740 (homologous to ORF 2280 from Nicotiana tabacum), ORF 77 (homologous to ORF 70), tRNA(Leu) (trnL) and a hypothetical ORF 55 which has no homology to any known gene among higher plants. This 5.3-kb area is colinear with a 12.4-kb region of tobacco ptDNA and has therefore undergone several deletions totalling 7.1 kb. Most of the missing nucleotides belong to one large deletion in the ptDNA of C. reflexa of approximately 6.5 kb. This deletion involves two ribosomal protein genes, rpl2 and rpl23, as well as the transfer RNA for Isoleucin (trnI) and a region encoding 1540 amino-acid residues of an ORF 2280 homologue, as compared to tobacco chloroplast DNA. This is remarkable since the remaining genes, especially the psbA gene, are highly conserved in C. reflexa. Furthermore, we found that the expression of the psbA gene is in the same range as in the autotrophic Ipomoea purpurea which belongs to the same family as Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae). Here we hypothesize a total loss of rpl2 and rpl23 in the entire genome of C. reflexa. The phylogenetic position of, and the evolutionary change of ptDNA from, Cuscuta are discussed.