DNA Microarray Analysis of the Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus: Evidence for a New Type of Sulfur-Reducing Enzyme Complex

ABSTRACT DNA microarrays were constructed by using 271 open reading frame (ORFs) from the genome of the archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus. They were used to investigate the effects of elemental sulfur (S°) on the levels of gene expression in cells grown at 95°C with maltose as the carbon source. The ORFs included those that are proposed to encode proteins mainly involved in the pathways of sugar and peptide catabolism, in the metabolism of metals, and in the biosynthesis of various cofactors, amino acids, and nucleotides. The expression of 21 ORFs decreased by more than fivefold when cells were grown with S° and, of these, 18 encode subunits associated with three different hydrogenase systems. The remaining three ORFs encode homologs of ornithine carbamoyltransferase and HypF, both of which appear to be involved in hydrogenase biosynthesis, as well as a conserved hypothetical protein. The expression of two previously uncharacterized ORFs increased by more than 25-fold when cells were grown with S°. Their products, termed SipA and SipB (for sulfur-induced proteins), are proposed to be part of a novel S°-reducing, membrane-associated, iron-sulfur cluster-containing complex. Two other previously uncharacterized ORFs encoding a putative flavoprotein and a second FeS protein were upregulated more than sixfold in S°-grown cells, and these are also thought be involved in S° reduction. Four ORFs that encode homologs of proteins involved in amino acid metabolism were similarly upregulated in S°-grown cells, a finding consistent with the fact that growth on peptides is a S°-dependent process. An ORF encoding a homolog of the eukaryotic rRNA processing protein, fibrillarin, was also upregulated sixfold in the presence of S°, although the reason for this is as yet unknown. Of the 20 S°-independent ORFs that are the most highly expressed (at more than 20 times the detection limit), 12 of them represent enzymes purified from P. furiosus, but none of the products of the 34 S°-independent ORFs that are not expressed above the detection limit have been characterized. These results represent the first derived from the application of DNA microarrays to either an archaeon or a hyperthermophile.