Hydrogen metabolism in Escherichia coli: biochemical and genetic evidence for a hydF gene.

A new gene whose product is essential for production of all three hydrogenase isoenzymes in Escherichia coli has been identified. This gene, termed hydF, mapped at 59 min in the E. coli chromosome and resided next to the hydB gene. The map order of these genes was hydE, hydF, hydB, fhlA, and fdv. The hydF gene was transcribed from its own promoter and coded for a protein with an apparent molecular weight of 43,000 to 44,000. Expression of the hydF operon was enhanced by anaerobic growth conditions. Partial products of the hydF gene were capable of supporting various levels of hydrogenase activity in a hydF mutant in the presence of the fhlA gene product, also produced from multicopy plasmids. In the presence of a second mutation in an unidentified, unlinked gene, hydrogenase activity in a hydF mutant was restored by plasmids which carried incomplete hydF and hydB+ genes. These results suggest that the products of hydF and fhlA interact with each other and with yet one other gene product.