Characteristics of a Rhodobacter sphaeroides mutant selected by increased growth rate under light-limiting photoheterotrophic conditions

A puc -deleted cell of Rhodobacter sphaeroides grows with a doubling time longer than 160 h under the light-limiting photoheterotrophic ( 3 Watts [W]/㎡) conditions due to an absence of the peripheral light-harvesting B800-850 complex. A spontaneous fast-growing mutant, R.sphaeroides SK101 was ioslate dto have∼40-h doubling at 3 Watts/㎡, while the growth of the mutant was not distinguished from its parental strain during both aerobic and light-saturating photoheterotrphic (10W/㎡) growth. The B875 complex of SK101 under the light-limiting conditions was elevated by 20 to 30% compared with that of the puc -deleted cell, reflecting parallel increase of bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoid contents of the mutant. The formation of B875 complex of SK101 under the anaerobic dark conditions with dimethylsulfoxide was the same as that of the puc-deleted cell. suggesting that the mutation of SK101 result in the altered control of B875 complex formation by light. When puc is restored in SK101 , it is not B875 complex but B800-850 complex which formation is elevated. The mutation of SK101 affected the bchF transcription most drastically to show two to tenfold increase during both aerobic and photoheterotrophic growth. The mutated phenotype of SK101 was complemented with pW2, which contains approximately 100-kb HNA of the photosynthetic gene clusters. The complementing DNA was narrowed down to a 1.1-kb DNA containing orfQ and pufKBA . The mutation of SK101 appeared to be exerted through the mutation of the orfQ gene encoding a putative bacteriochlorophyll -mobilizing protein.