The transition metal nickel is an essential trace element of at least five biological processes (14, 31): (i) hydrolysis of urea, (ii) oxidation and evolution of molecular hydrogen, (iii) carbon monoxide dehydrogenase-mediated acetate metabolism under anaerobic conditions, (iv) reduction of methyl coenzyme M to methane, and (v) detoxification of superoxide anion radicals. Uptake of nickel is a prerequisite for those organisms which catalyze nickel-dependent reactions. Ni 2ϩ -the most prevalent form-is taken up by nonspecific Mg 2ϩ transport systems and high-affinity systems specific for the transport of nickel (see reference 8 for a review).In general, two types of nickel-specific uptake systems have been identified so far: (i) the multiple-component ATP binding cassette system called Nik, which was thought for a long time to be unique to Escherichia coli (39), until homologous systems were identified and characterized in Brucella suis (17) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus (28); and (ii) the nickel-cobalt transporter family, comprising homologous single polypeptides in a variety of microorganisms (8, 32)-Helicobacter pylori (25), Ralstonia eutropha (7), Bradyrhizobium japonicum (11), Rhodococcus rhodochrous (18), and the thermophilic Bacillus species strain TB-90 (21)-which have all been characterized biochemically, or at least physiologically. During database searches, related sequences have been identified in the genomes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium; Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium; Staphylococcus aureus; Yersinia pestis; and the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe (8).Members of the second family share two recognition sequences within their common topology of eight transmembrane helices (TMs): NH 2 -Arg/Lys-His-Ala-Xaa-Asp-Ala-Asp-HisIle/Leu-COOH in TM II and NH 2 -Gly-(Xaa) 2 -Phe-(Xaa) 2 -Gly-His-Ser/Thr-Ser/Thr-Val/Ile-Val-COOH in TM III (32). Besides these two conserved motifs, 48 other conserved amino acids scattered through the protein could be detected after sequence alignment. Recently, two other motifs have been proposed (9): NH 2 -Leu-Gly-Xaa-Asp/Glu-Thr-Ala/Ser-Thr/ Ser-Glu-COOH in TM V and NH 2 -Gly-Met-(Xaa) 3 -Asp-Thr/ Ser-Xaa-Asp-COOH in TM VI.The high-affinity nickel transport protein NixA of the human pathogen H. pylori was discovered when a gene bank clone of strain ATCC 43504 was found to enhance the coexpressed urease activity in E. coli (25). The urease-an important virulence factor of H. pylori-is a major sink of nickel in this organism, representing up to 6% of the soluble cell protein (16). It converts urea to ammonia and carbamate, the latter decomposing spontaneously to carbon dioxide and ammonia. The released ammonia has been postulated to allow the survival of H. pylori and its colonization of the low-pH environment of the gastric mucosa, which causes Type B gastritis as well as gastric and duodenal ulceration (1,4,19,23,24). Persistent infection is strongly associated with...