The position of the codon immediately upstream of the transposon insertion site is indicated in brackets. Two additional experiments were performed to complete the physiological characterization of these mutants with respect to arsenite oxidation. First, arsenic species were quantified by HPLC-ICP-AES on filtered culture supernatants. H. arsenicoxydans was grown in liquid medium supplemented selleck chemicals with 1.33 mM arsenite and showed 100% transformation of As(III) into As(V) after 48 h, whereas M1 (aoxA) and M2 (aoxB) mutants used as controls were not able to transform As(III) into As(V). The same loss of arsenite

oxidase activity was measured in Ha482 (aoxS), Ha483 (aoxR), Ha2646 (dnaJ) and Ha3109 (rpoN) mutants. In contrast to the results obtained on agar plates, Ha3437 (modC) and Ha3438 (modB) strains showed 100% transformation of arsenite (Table 1, Figure 1A). Previous studies have demonstrated that the bioavailability of metals or trace elements considerably varies according to the type of matrix used for microbial Nutlin-3a nmr growth [18]. We therefore assumed that Mo might be partly sequestred on CDM agar medium, resulting in a lack of arsenite oxidase activity Wortmannin clinical trial on plate. To test this hypothesis, As(III) oxidase tests were performed on CDM agar plates supplemented

with 50 μM Mo. The addition of Mo to the solid medium restored As(III) oxidase activity in both Ha3437 (modC) and Ha3438 (modB) mutants while it had no effect on other mutant strains (Figure 1B). Table 1 Determination of arsenic speciation in H. arsenicoxydans wild-type and mutant strains. Strain Mutated gene Arsenic species Ergoloid identifieda     As(III) As(V) ULPAs1 / – + M1b aoxA + – M2b aoxB + – Ha482 aoxS + – Ha483 aoxR + – Ha2646 dnaJ + – Ha3109 rpoN + – Ha3437 modC – + Ha3438 modB – + Determined by HPLC-ICP-AES after 48 h growth in CDM medium containing 100 mg.liter of arsenite. b [9] Second, we have previously demonstrated that the polar flagellum-dependent motility of H. arsenicoxydans is

increased in the presence of As(III), suggesting that arsenite oxidation may result in a gain of energy [6]. The motility of mutant strains was therefore tested on plates containing different concentrations of As(III), i. e. 0.66 mM, 1.33 mM and 2 mM. The diameter of the swarming rings was measured after 72 h. As shown in Figure 3, the disruption of aoxA, aoxB, aoxR, aoxS or rpoN genes abolished the improvement of swarming performances in the presence of As(III). Unlike those mutants, a disruption in dnaJ completely abolished the motility of H. arsenicoxydans in the presence or the absence of As(III). DnaJ is known to be essential for the expression of the flhDC flagellar master operon in Escherichia coli [19]. The lack of motility observed in the dnaJ mutant suggests the existence of a similar flhDC-dependent regulation of flagellar genes in H. arsenicoxydans.