Anaerobiosis induces expression of ant, a new Escherichia coli locus with a role in anaerobic electron transport.

Escherichia coli has a formate hydrogenlyase system which allows it to maintain an electron balance during anaerobic growth by passing electrons from formate to H+ ions, thus generating H2. The Mu d1(Ap lac) bacteriophage was used to generate mutants that were defective in passing electrons from formate to benzyl viologen, an artificial electron acceptor. A subset of these mutants was studied in which beta-galactosidase was expressed at much higher levels under anaerobic conditions than under aerobic conditions. If nitrate was present during anaerobic growth, the same levels of beta-galactosidase were seen in these fusion strains as were seen under aerobic conditions. The Mu d1(Ap lac) insertions in these mutants were genetically mapped between mutS and srl and thus define a new locus we have termed ant (anaerobic electron transport). Recombinant lambda derivatives were isolated which complemented the deficiency of the ant mutants in anaerobic electron transport and also carried a trans-acting region of DNA which reduced expression of the ant-lac fusions under anaerobic conditions; a probe to the ant region was generated from one of these recombinant lambda derivatives. Southern hybridization analysis revealed that the four independent ant::Mu d1(Ap lac) fusions we isolated spanned an approximately 5-kilobase region and that all were transcribed in the same direction, counterclockwise on the E. coli genetic map.