Engineering of Nitrosomonas europaea to express Vitreoscilla hemoglobin enhances oxygen uptake and conversion of ammonia to nitrite

Nitrosomonas europaea was transformed with a recombinant plasmid bearing the gene (vgb) encoding the hemoglobin (VHb) from the bacterium Vitreoscilla under control of the N. europaeaamoC P1 promoter. Vgb was maintained stably and appeared to be expressed in the transformants at VHb levels of about 0.75 nmol/g wet weight. Expression of VHb in the N. europaea transformants was correlated with an approximately 2 fold increase in oxygen uptake rate by whole cells at oxygen concentrations in the range of 75–100% saturation, but no change in oxygen uptake rate at oxygen concentrations below 25% saturation. VHb expression was also correlated with an increase of as much as about 30% in conversion of ammonia to nitrite by growing cells. The results suggest that engineering of key aerobic wastewater bacteria to express bacterial hemoglobins may be a useful strategy to produce species with enhanced respiratory abilities.