Functional redundancy between <i>sufA</i>, <i>iscA</i> and <i>erpA</i>.

1All strains were grown overnight aerobically in LB medium supplemented with arabinose (0.2%), thiamine (50 µg/ml), nicotinic acid (12.5 µg/ml) and mevalonate (Mev, 1 mM) then plated on the same medium with or without mevalonate. The plates were incubated at 37°C aerobically (+O2) or in limiting oxygen (−O2) for 3 days before counting. Plating efficiency was calculated as the ratio: number of colonies formed in tested conditions/number of colonies formed aerobically on LB plates containing mevalonate. Plating efficiencies in anaerobiosis and presence of mevalonate were all ≥0.5. The numbers did not significantly change with further incubation even after 7 days and same results were obtained with overnight culture incubated anaerobically.