The most abundant transition metal in biological systems is iron. It is incorporated into protein cofactors and serves either catalytic, redox or regulatory purposes. Anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria rely heavily on iron-containing proteins – especially cytochromes – for their energy conservation, which occurs within a unique organelle, the anammoxosome. Both their anaerobic lifestyle and the presence of an additional cellular compartment challenge our understanding of iron processing. Here, we combine existing concepts of iron uptake, utilization and metabolism, and cellular fate with genomic and still limited biochemical and physiological data on anammox bacteria to propose pathways these bacteria may employ.

Electron transport, or oxidative phosphorylation, is one of the hallmarks of life. To this end, prokaryotes evolved a vast variety of protein complexes, only a small part of which have been discovered and studied. These protein complexes allow them to occupy virtually every ecological niche on Earth. Here, we applied the method of proteomics-based complexome profiling to get a better understanding of the electron transport systems of the anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria, the N₂-producing key players of the global nitrogen cycle. By this method nearly all respiratory complexes that were previously predicted from genome analysis to be involved in energy and cell carbon fixation were validated. More importantly, new and unexpected ones were discovered. We believe that complexome profiling in concert with (meta)genomics offers great opportunities to expand our knowledge on bacterial respiratory processes at a rapid and massive pace, in particular in new and thus far poorly investigated non-model and environmentally-relevant species.