RESEARCH ARTICLE TonB Energy Transduction Systems of Riemerella anatipestifer Are Required for Iron and Hemin Utilization HeBin Liao1,2,3, XingJun Cheng1,2,3, DeKang Zhu1,2,3, MingShu Wang1,2,3, RenYong Jia1,2,3, Shun Chen1,2,3, XiaoYue Chen1,2,3, Francis Biville4, MaFeng Liu1,2,3*, AnChun Cheng1,2,3* 1 Avian Disease Research Center, College of Veterinary Medicine of Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya’an, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, 2 Institute of Preventive Veterinary Medicine, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, 3 Key Laboratory of Animal Disease and Human ’ a11111 Health of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People s Republic of China, 4 Unité des Infections Bactériennes Invasives, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France *
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[email protected] (AC) Abstract OPEN ACCESS Riemerella anatipestifer (R. anatipestifer) is one of the most important pathogens in ducks. Citation: Liao H, Cheng X, Zhu D, Wang M, Jia R, The bacteria causes acute or chronic septicemia characterized by fibrinous pericarditis and Chen S, et al. (2015) TonB Energy Transduction meningitis. The R. anatipestifer genome encodes multiple iron/hemin-uptake systems that Systems of Riemerella anatipestifer Are Required for Iron and Hemin Utilization. PLoS ONE 10(5): facilitate adaptation to iron-limited host environments. These systems include several e0127506. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127506 TonB-dependent transporters and three TonB proteins responsible for energy transduction. Received: January 14, 2015 These three tonB genes are present in all the R. anatipestifer genomes sequenced so far. Two of these genes are contained within the exbB-exbD-tonB1 and exbB-exbD-exbD- Accepted: April 16, 2015 tonB2 operons.