Introduction of a Bacterial Hemoglobin Gene for Improving Bacterial Growth under Hypoxic Condition

Abstract

Using recombinant DNA technology, the vector system containing minimal fragment of a bacterial hemoglobin gene (vgb) was constructed. When this vector was inserted into Escherichia coli, the growth of the host was significantly improved in both viable cell counts and absorbance measurement, compared to that of the wild type strain. In addition, by minimizing the size of bacterial hemoglobin in the vector, the ability of vgb in growth improvement was augmented, due to the reduction of metabolic burden from the maintenance and replication of the plasmid. By using this system, it is expected that the growth of microorganisms can be improved even in the hypoxic condition.