A periplasmic flavoprotein in Wolinella succinogenes that resembles the fumarate reductase of Shewanella putrefaciens

Abstract

During growth with fumarate as the terminal electron transport acceptor and either formate or sulfide as the electron donor, Wolinella succinogenes induced a peri-plasmic protein (54 kDa) that reacted with an antiserum raised against the periplasmic fumarate reductase (Fcc) of Shewanella putrefaciens. However, the periplasmic cell fraction of W. succinogenes did not catalyze fumarate reduction with viologen radicals. W. succinogenes grown with polysulfide instead of fumarate contained much less (< 10%) of the 54-kDa antigen, and the antigen was not detectable in nitrate-grown bacteria. The antigen was most likely encoded by the fccA gene of W. succinogenes. The antigen was absent from a ΔfccABC mutant, and its size is close to that of the protein predicted by fccA. The fccA gene probably encodes a pre-protein carrying an N-terminal signal peptide. The sequence of the mature FccA (481 residues, 52.4 kDa) is similar (31% identity) to that of the C-terminal part (450 residues) of S. putrefaciens fumarate reductase. As indicated by Northern blot analysis, fccA is cotranscribed with fccB and fccC. The proteins predicted from the fccB and fccC gene sequences represent tetraheme cytochromes c. FccB is similar to the N-terminal part (150 residues) of S. putrefaciens fumarate reductase, while FccC resembles the tetraheme cytochromes c of the NirT/NapC family. The ΔfccABC mutant of W. succinogenes grew with fumarate and formate or sulfide, suggesting that the deleted proteins were not required for fumarate respiration with either electron donor.