Identification and characterization of a Vibrio mimicus gene encoding the heme/hemoglobin receptor

The present authors have previously reported that Vibrio mimicus expresses 77-kDa and 80-kDa outer membrane proteins in response to iron-limited conditions, and that the 77-kDa protein serves as the receptor for ferriaerobactin. In this study, it was found that V. mimicus can use heme and hemoglobin as iron sources. FURTA was then applied to V. mimicus 7PT to obtain candidate gene fragments involved in utilization of heme and hemoglobin. One FURTA-positive clone was shown to contain a partial gene, whose predicted amino acid sequence correlated with the N-terminal amino acid sequence determined for the 80-kDa outer membrane protein and also shared homology with heme/hemoglobin receptors of Gram-negative bacteria. Based on this information, the entire gene (named mhuA), and a gene upstream of mhuA (named mhuB) encoding a LysR family of transcriptional activator, were cloned and analyzed. RNA analysis indicated that mhuA and mhuB are each transcribed from individual Fur-regulated promoters. Moreover, RNA analysis of an mhuB deletion mutant and a promoter reporter assay coupled with β-galactosidase suggested that MhuB could function as an activator for mhuA transcription. Finally, the role of MhuA as the heme/hemoglobin receptor was confirmed by construction of an mhuA deletion mutant and its complemented strain followed by growth assay.