title: Genetic approaches of the Fe-S cluster biogenesis process in bacteria: Historical account, methodological aspects and future challenges.
abstract: Since their discovery in the 50's, Fe-S cluster proteins have attracted much attention from chemists, biophysicists and biochemists. However, in the 80's they were joined by geneticists who helped to realize that in vivo maturation of Fe-S cluster bound proteins required assistance of a large number of factors defining complex multi-step pathways. The question of how clusters are formed and distributed in vivo has since been the focus of much effort. Here we review how genetics in discovering genes and investigating processes as they unfold in vivo has provoked seminal advances toward our understanding of Fe-S cluster biogenesis. The power and limitations of genetic approaches are discussed. As a final comment, we argue how the marriage of classic strategies and new high-throughput technologies should allow genetics of Fe-S cluster biology to be even more insightful in the future. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Fe/S proteins: Analysis, structure, function, biogenesis and diseases.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne, UMR7283 Aix-Marseille University and CNRS, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13009 Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Béatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Py
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne, UMR7283 Aix-Marseille University and CNRS, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13009 Marseille, France. Electronic address: barras@imm.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Barras
mesh_terms: D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005544:Forecasting; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D007506:Iron-Sulfur Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D009154:Mutation
chemical_list: D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D007506:Iron-Sulfur Proteins
keywords: Approach; Fe–S cluster biogenesis; Genetics; Model