Isolation and characterization of an operon involved in sulfate and sulfite metabolism in Sinorhizobium fredii

A gene cluster ORFabcd from a Sinorhizobium fredii HN01 mutant strain HSMRα was isolated. We showed that it was an operon involved in sulfur metabolism. Functional studies revealed that, except for ORFb, the three genes ORFa, ORFc and ORFd were involved in sulfite reduction. ORFa and ORFc were similar to the cysG and cysI from Sinorhizobium meliloti 1021 and Rhizobium etli CFN 42, respectively. ORFd encodes a conserved hypothetical protein in other bacteria. We demonstrate here, for the first time, that it was a new locus involved in sulfate assimilation in S. fredii HN01 and we designated it as cysII.