Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 30, Pages 12153-12158Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1203796109
Keywords
superoxide; peroxidase; anaerobiosis
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Funding
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease/National Institutes of Health [AI-19497]
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Bacteroides fragilis can replicate in atmospheres containing <= 0.05% oxygen, but higher concentrations arrest growth by an unknown mechanism. Here we show that inactivation of a single gene, oxe (i.e., oxygen enabled) in B. fragilis allows for growth in concentrations as high as 2% oxygen while increasing the tolerance of this organism to room air. Known components of the oxidative stress response including the ahpC, kat, batA-E, and tpx genes were not individually important for microaerobic growth. However, Delta oxe strain scavenged H2O2 at a faster rate than WT, indicating that reactive oxygen species may play a critical role in limiting growth of this organism to low-oxygen environments. Clinical isolates of B. fragilis displayed a greater capacity for growth under microaerobic conditions than fecal isolates, with some encoding polymorphisms in oxe. Additionally, isolation of oxygen-enabled mutants of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron suggests that Oxe may mediate growth arrest of other anaerobes in oxygenated environments.
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