Identification of a novel gene, aut, involved in autotrophic growth of Alcaligenes eutrophus.

The aerobic facultative chemoautotroph Alcaligenes eutrophus was found to possess a novel gene, designated aut, required for both lithoautotrophic (hydrogen plus carbon dioxide) and organoautotrophic (formate) growth (Aut+ phenotype). Insertional mutagenesis by transposon Tn5-Mob localized the gene on a chromosomal 13-kbp EcoRI fragment. Physiological characterization of various Aut- mutants revealed pleiotropic effects caused by the transposon insertion. Heterotrophic growth of the mutants on substrates catabolized via the glycolytic pathway was slower than that of the parent strains, and the colony morphology of the mutants was altered when grown on nutrient agar. The heterotrophic derepression of the cbb operons encoding Calvin cycle enzymes was abolished, although their expression was still inducible in the presence of formate. Apparently, the mutation did not affect the cbb genes directly but impaired the autotrophic growth in a more general manner. The conjugally transferred wild-type EcoRI fragment allowed phenotypic in trans complementation of the mutants. Further subcloning and sequencing identified a single open reading frame (aut) of 495 bp that was sufficient for complementation. The monocistronic aut gene was constitutively transcribed into a 0.65-kb mRNA. However, its expression appeared to be low. Heterologous expression of aut was achieved in Escherichia coli, resulting in overproduction of an 18-kDa protein. Database searches yielded weak partial sequence similarities of the deduced Aut protein sequence to some cytidylyltransferases, but no indication for the exact function of the aut gene was obtained. Hybridizing DNA sequences that might be similar to the aut gene were detected by Southern hybridization in the genome of two other autotrophic bacteria.