Effects of the Vitreoscilla Hemoglobin Gene on the Expression of the Ferritin Gene in Escherichia coli

To investigate the effects of the Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb) gene on the production of a heterologous protein, a comparative expression system for VHb and ferritin was constructed. First, the VHb gene was inserted into the downstream and upstream regions of the ferritin gene to construct pHF2 and pHF3, respectively. Next, the two plasmids pACHB1 and pVUTFH10, having the VHb gene and the ferritin gene respectively, were constructed in order to express the two genes in different plasmids by using a coplasmid expression system. It was observed that the cell growth was improved in all strains containing the VHb gene. Furthermore, in our coplasmid expression system, the presence of the VHb gene increased production of the ferritin by 1.8 times, as much as that in a strain not having the VHb gene.