Siderochromes from Pseudomonas fluorescens. II. Structural homology as revealed by NMR spectroscopy.

Ferribactin and the pyoverdines, siderochromes that are obtained from liquid cultures of Pseudomonas fluorescens cells, have been studied and compared by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The proton spectra of the iron-free compounds show that the pyoverdines share with ferribactin a common feature, formyl hydroxamic acid groups, that previously had only been observed in hadacidin, and antitumor antibiotic produced by Penicillium frequentans. The 1H and 13C NMR data confirm that ferribactin is a nonapeptide that contains two residues each of lysine and N6-formyl-N6-hydroxyornithine. This corrects an earlier report (Maurer, B., Müller, A., Keller-Schierlein, W., and Zähner, H. (1968) Arch. Mikrobiol. 60, 326-339) ascribing two acetyl hydroxamic acid groups and three lysyl residues to ferribactin. Similarly, the spectroscopic data show that pyoverdine lacks the Glx and Tyr residues present in ferribactin. On the basis of the compositional analogy exhibited by pyoverdine and ferribactin, it is suggested that the two siderochromes may be metabolically related. The 13C NMR spectra of pyoverdine indicate that its fluorescent component is a nine-carbon aromatic heterocycle, probably identical with an o-dihydroxyquinoline chromophore found in pseudobactin, a fluorescent siderophore produced by Pseudomonas B10.