Expression of the obcA gene was able to restore the ability of the mutant to produce oxalic acid (Fig. 2b). The observed level of oxalic acid production, however, was much less than the wild type, suggesting that another essential component(s) was missing. This hypothesis was confirmed upon complementation of the Bod1 mutant Selleck AZD0530 with a larger 9-kb DNA fragment

(C1E2) containing the obcA locus (Fig. 2b). In an effort to identify the missing component(s), deletion analysis was performed on the 9-kb C1E2 fragment (Fig. 3a). Using the available restriction sites present on this DNA fragment, deletions were made to both the 5′ and the 3′ ends. Using this strategy, a second ORF was identified, which we refer to as the obcB locus. blast searches conducted using this gene revealed a 70% identity to an ORF from B. ubonensis as well as similarities to other bacterial acetyltransferases. This is in agreement with the proposed enzyme reaction mechanism and biochemical assay that has a requirement for acetyl-CoA (Li et al., 1999). To verify the role of both genes in oxalic acid production,

four different constructs were generated and expressed in E. coli (Fig. 3b). Escherichia coli is a bacterium that does not normally biosynthesize oxalic acid. As with the complementation assay, expression of the obcA locus alone resulted Ibrutinib chemical structure in the production of some oxalic acid, while expression of Erastin price the obcB alone did not result in any detectable

acid. Coexpression of obcA and obcB either as one continuous DNA fragment (obcA–obcB) or as separate DNA fragments (obcA+obcB) contained on the same vector resulted in increased oxalic acid levels, and thus confirmed the importance of both ORFs in oxalic acid production (Fig. 3b). Because both obcA and obcB are important in the biosynthesis of oxalic acid, are in close proximity to each other, and are encoded in the same transcriptional direction, it seemed likely that both genes could be encoded on a single polycistronic message. Such an arrangement of transcriptional control would also provide a plausible explanation for why complementation of the Bod1 (obcA knockout) with a functional copy of the obcA gene was not enough to fully restore the oxalate phenotype (Fig. 2b). To test this operon hypothesis, we performed a transcriptional analysis using RT-PCR and gene-specific primers (Fig. 4a and b). Genomic DNA was used as a positive template control and total RNA (without running the RT reaction) was used as a negative template control. All primer pairs used in the RT-PCR experiment resulted in the generation of a DNA fragment of the expected size, indicating that the obcA and obcB genes were indeed encoded on a single polycistronic message and were thus structured into an operon. Overall, it appears that a molecular-genetic approach will be useful in deciphering the oxalic acid biosynthetic pathway in bacteria.