Characterization of the inducible nickel and cobalt resistance determinant cnr from pMOL28 of Alcaligenes eutrophus CH34

Abstract

From pMOL28, one of the two heavy metal resistance plasmids of Alcaligenes eutrophus strain CH34, we cloned an EcoRI-PstI fragment into plasmid pVDZ'2. This hybrid plasmid conferred inducible nickel and cobalt resistance (cnr) in two distinct plasmid-free A. eutrophus hosts, strains AE104 and H16. Resistances were not expressed in Escherichia coli. The nucleotide sequence of the 8.5-kb EcoRI-PstI fragment (8,528 bp) revealed seven open reading frames; two of these, cnrB and cnrA, were assigned with respect to size and location to polypeptides expressed in E. coli under the control of the bacteriophage T7 promoter. The genes cnrC (44 kDa), cnrB (40 kDa), and cnrA (115.5 kDa) are probably structural genes; the gene loci cnrH (11.6 kDa), cnrR (tentatively assigned to open reading frame 1 [ORF]; 15.5 kDa), and cnrY (tentatively assigned to ORF0ab; ORF0a, 11.0 kDa; ORF0b, 10.3 kDa) are probably involved in the regulation of expression. ORF0ab and ORF1 exhibit a codon usage that is not typical for A. eutrophus. The 8.5-kb EcoRI-PstI fragment was mapped by Tn5 transposon insertion mutagenesis. Among 72 insertion mutants, the majority were nickel sensitive. The mutations located upstream of cnrC resulted in various phenotypic changes: (i) each mutation in one of the gene loci cnrYRH caused constitutivity, (ii) a mutation in cnrH resulted in different expression of cobalt and nickel resistance in the hosts H16 and AE104, and (iii) mutations in cnrY resulted in two- to fivefold-increased nickel resistance in both hosts. These genes are considered to be involved in the regulation of cnr. Comparison of cnr of pMOL28 with czc of pMOL30, the other large plasmid of CH34, revealed that the structural genes are arranged in the same order and determine proteins of similar molecular weights. The largest protein CnrA shares 46% amino acid similarity with CzcA (the largest protein of the czc operon). The other putative gene products, CnrB and CnrC, share 28 and 30% similarity, respectively, with the corresponding proteins of czc.