Genes coding for MtrF, MtrC, and OmcA were deleted in one step. This deletion led to further excision of mtrD and mtrE from the chromosome. The genes for the decaheme c-type cytochrome SO_1659 and the diheme cytochrome SO_2931 were deleted subsequently. The presence of MtrA and MtrB this website was shown to be a requirement for metal reduction by S. oneidensis (Bretschger et al., 2007). Hence, possible effects of the removal of genes ranging from mtrF to mtrC on the expression of mtrA and mtrB were circumvented by the concomitant introduction of an arabinose-inducible promoter

and the araC repressor. Genes coding for OM cytochromes from S. oneidensis were cloned separately into plasmid pBAD202 to assign specific functions to these proteins in further experiments. The sequence information for a C-terminal strep-tag was added to allow for the specific detection of the proteins produced. The relative amounts of the produced OM cytochromes were quantified via immunodetection of the added strep-tag epitope (Fig. 1a). OmcA production resulted in the strongest strep-tag derived signal compared with all other OM cytochromes produced (Fig. 1c). Signals resulting from MtrCstrep and MtrFstrep production were detected in similar quantities, which indicates similar production levels. In contrast, the production of SO_1659strep

and SO_2931strep seems to be strongly reduced compared with the other three OM cytochromes. Proteinase K assays according to Myers & Myers (2003a) were performed to investigate whether the proteins are oriented toward the periplasm or the surrounding media (Fig. 2). Detection was based selleck screening library on the added strep-tag epitope. IMP dehydrogenase A control reaction using production of a strep-tagged MtrA protein that is localized to the periplasm was performed, to ensure that the assay conditions did not interfere with cell integrity. Localization of OmcA and MtrC to the cell surface was already shown by other research groups (Myers & Myers,

2003a; Shi et al., 2008). Hence, MtrCstrep and OmcAstrep were used as proteinase K-degradable control proteins. As Fig. 2 shows, OmcAstrep, MtrCstrep, MtrFstrep, and the decaheme cytochrome SO_1659strep are clearly hydrolyzed by the proteinase. Diheme SO_2931strep does not seem to be surface exposed or is not available for proteinase activity. Cell suspension assays showed that only the production of MtrCstrep and MtrFstrep could partly rescue the mutant phenotype for ferric citrate reduction (Fig. 3a and b). MtrFstrep production resulted in a 1.2-fold accelerated ferric citrate reduction rate compared with the MtrCstrep-producing strain. Surprisingly, the presence of OmcAstrep did not lead to increased ferric iron reduction rates compared with the ΔOMC mutant. To exclude the possible effects of the strep-tag epitope on protein activity, control experiments with the native form of omcA in the same vector backbone were performed. Production of the native form of OmcA was shown via heme activity staining (Fig. 1b).