Bacillus cereus iron uptake protein fishes out an unstable ferric citrate trimer
2012
Fukushima, Tatsuya | Sia, Allyson K. | Allred, Benjamin E. | Nichiporuk, Rita | Zhou, Zhongrui | Andersen, Ulla N. | Raymond, Kenneth N.
Citrate is a common biomolecule that chelates Fe(III). Many bacteria and plants use ferric citrate to fulfill their nutritional requirement for iron. Only the Escherichia coli ferric citrate outer-membrane transport protein FecA has been characterized; little is known about other ferric citrate-binding proteins. Here we report a unique siderophore-binding protein from the Gram-positive pathogenic bacterium Bacillus cereus that binds multinuclear ferric citrate complexes. We have demonstrated that B. cereus ATCC 14579 takes up ⁵⁵Fe radiolabeled ferric citrate and that a protein, BC_3466 [renamed FctC (ferric citrate-binding protein C)], binds ferric citrate. The dissociation constant (K d) of FctC at pH 7.4 with ferric citrate (molar ratio 1:50) is 2.6 nM. This is the tightest binding observed of any B. cereus siderophore-binding protein. Nano electrospray ionization–mass spectrometry (nano ESI-MS) analysis of FctC and ferric citrate complexes or citrate alone show that FctC binds diferric di-citrate, and triferric tricitrate, but does not bind ferric di-citrate, ferric monocitrate, or citrate alone. Significantly, the protein selectively binds triferric tricitrate even though this species is naturally present at very low equilibrium concentrations.
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