Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Infect. Immun., Jan 1998, 151-160, Vol 66, No. 1
C Elkins, PA Totten, B Olsen and CE Thomas
By cloning into Escherichia coli and construction of isogenic mutants of
Haemophilus ducreyi, we showed that the hemoglobin receptor (HgbA) is TonB
dependent. An E. coli hemA tonB mutant expressing H. ducreyi hgbA grew on
low levels of hemoglobin as a source of heme only when an intact H. ducreyi
Ton system plasmid was present. In contrast, growth on heme by the E. coli
hemA tonB mutant expressing hgbA was observed only at high concentrations
of heme, was TonB independent, and demonstrated that H. ducreyi HgbA was
not sufficient to function as a typical TonB-dependent heme receptor in E.
coli. Allelic replacement of the wild-type H. ducreyi exbB, exbD, and tonB
loci with the exbB, exbD, and tonB deletion resulted in an H. ducreyi
isogenic mutant unable to utilize hemoglobin but able to utilize hemin at
the same levels as the parent strain to fulfill its heme requirement. This
finding confirms the TonB dependence of HgbA-mediated hemoglobin
utilization and suggests that uptake of hemin in H. ducreyi is TonB
independent. Additionally, the H. ducreyi Ton system mutant synthesized
increased amounts of HgbA and other heme-regulated outer membrane proteins,
consistent with derepression of these proteins due to lower intracellular
heme and/or iron concentrations in the mutant. Sequencing of the Ton system
genes revealed that the arrangement of the genes was exbB exbD tonB. The
proximity and structure of these genes suggested that they are transcribed
as an operon. This arrangement, as well as the DNA and deduced amino acid
sequences of these H. ducreyi genes, was most similar to those from other
pasteurellae.
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology
Role of the Haemophilus ducreyi Ton system in internalization of heme from hemoglobin
Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599, USA. chriselk@med.unc.edu
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»