Isolation and characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mutants blocked in the synthesis of pyoverdin

We have isolated and characterized by chemical and enzymatic analyses three distinct types of pyoverdin-defective (pvd) mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. The pvd-1 mutant is an L-N5-hydroxyornithine (L-N5-OH-Orn) auxotroph unable to hydroxylate L-ornithine (L-Orn) in a cell-free system and requiring L-N5-OH-Orn for pyoverdin production. The other two types of mutants appear to be blocked in further steps of the biosynthetic pathway leading to pyoverdin, namely, the acylation of L-N5-OH-Orn (pvd-2) and chromophore synthesis (pvd-3). The different pvd mutations were all found to be located in the catA1 region at 47 min of the genetic map of P. aeruginosa PAO1.