Three different but related gene clusters encoding gas vesicles in halophilic archaea.

We present an analysis of the chromosomal region comprising the gene cluster involved in gas vesicle (Vac) synthesis in Haloferax mediterranei (mc-vac-region) and Halobacterium salinarium (c-vac-region) and compare both of them to the plasmid located p-vac-region of H. salinarium. The p-vac-region of 9000 base-pairs (9 kb) is more related to mc-vac (9.4 kb) of Hf. mediterranei than it is to the c-vac-region (8.3 kb) present in the same cell. The Vac- species Hf. volcanii becomes Vac+ following transformation with a fragment containing the entire mc-vac-region. Also the p-vac-region transforms Hf. volcanii to a Vac+ phenotype, indicating that this gene cluster is sufficient for gas vesicle synthesis and does not depend on products of the c-vac-region. Each of these vac-regions contains, in addition to gvpA encoding the major gas vesicle protein, 13 open reading frames named gvpC through gvpO. Ten of these, gvpD through gvpM, are located upstream from gvpA in opposite orientation, while gvpC, gvpN and gvpO are found 3' to gvpA. The absolute requirement of gvpO for gas vesicle synthesis was demonstrated by transformation experiments. Northern analyses with RNA samples isolated during the growth cycle of Hf. mediterranei or of H. salinarium PHH4 revealed that the mc-gvpD or c-gvpD mRNAs occur similar to the respective gvpA mRNA in stationary growth phase, while gvpF-gvpM are transcribed mainly during logarithmic growth. S1-nuclease mapping was performed to determine the transcriptional start site of the gvpD mRNA. The distance between the two divergent start sites of gvpA and gvpD mRNA is 109 base-pairs in mc-vac and p-vac, while in the case of c-vac this distance is 22 base-pairs larger. The conservation of the various gvp products, characteristic features and their possible functions in gas vesicle synthesis are discussed.