title: The influence of iron on the proteomic profile of Chromobacterium violaceum.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chromobacterium violaceum is a bacterium commonly found in tropical and subtropical regions and is associated with important pharmacological and industrial attributes such as producing substances with therapeutic properties and synthesizing biodegradable polymers. Its genome was sequenced, however, approximately 40% of its genes still remain with unknown functions. Although C. violaceum is known by its versatile capacity of living in a wide range of environments, little is known on how it achieves such success. Here, we investigated the proteomic profile of C. violaceum cultivated in the absence and presence of high iron concentration, describing some proteins of unknown function that might play an important role in iron homeostasis, amongst others.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Briefly, C. violaceum was cultivated in the absence and in the presence of 9 mM of iron during four hours. Total proteins were identified by LC-MS and through the PatternLab pipeline. Our proteomic analysis indicates major changes in the energetic metabolism, and alterations in the synthesis of key transport and stress proteins. In addition, it may suggest the presence of a yet unidentified operon that could be related to oxidative stress, together with a set of other proteins with unknown function. The protein-protein interaction network also pinpointed the importance of energetic metabolism proteins to the acclimatation of C. violaceum in high concentration of iron.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first proteomic analysis of the opportunistic pathogen C. violaceum in the presence of high iron concentration. Our data allowed us to identify a yet undescribed operon that might have a role in oxidative stress defense. Our work provides new data that will contribute to understand how this bacterium achieve its capacity of surviving in harsh conditions as well as to open a way to explore the yet little availed biotechnological characteristics of this bacterium with the further exploring of the proteins of unknown function that we showed to be up-regulated in high iron concentration.
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.forename: Fábio T
authors.initials: FT
authors.lastname: Duarte
authors.forename: Viviane K S
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Medeiros
authors.forename: Diogo B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.forename: Paulo C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bonatto
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Biologia Molecular e Genômica, Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Campus Universitário s/n, Lagoa Nova, Natal 59072-970, RN, Brazil. sbatistu@cb.ufrn.br.
authors.forename: Silvia R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Batistuzzo de Medeiros
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D002861:Chromobacterium / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D003470:Culture Media / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D009876:Operon; D020543:Proteome / Q000032:analysis*; D040901:Proteomics
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003470:Culture Media; D020543:Proteome; D007501:Iron