Although little is known of potential function for conserved signaling proteins, it is hypothesized that such proteins play important roles to coordinate cellular responses to environmental stimuli. In order to elucidate the function of a putative sensory box protein (PAS domains) in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, the physiological role of SO3389 was characterized. The predicted open reading frame (ORF) encodes a putative sensory box protein that has PAS, GGDEF, and EAL domains, and an in-frame deletion mutant was constructed (⌬SO3389) with approximately 95% of the ORF deleted. Under aerated conditions, wild-type and mutant cultures had similar growth rates, but the mutant culture had a lower growth rate under static, aerobic conditions. Oxygen consumption rates were lower for mutant cultures (1.5-fold), and wild-type cultures also maintained lower dissolved oxygen concentrations under aerated growth conditions. When transferred to anoxic conditions, the mutant did not grow with fumarate, iron(III), or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as electron acceptors. Biochemical assays demonstrated the expression of different c-type cytochromes as well as decreased fumarate reductase activity in the mutant transferred to anoxic growth conditions. Transcriptomic studies showed the inability of the mutant to up-express and down-express genes, including c-type cytochromes (e.g., SO4047/SO4048, SO3285/SO3286), reductases (e.g., SO0768, SO1427), and potential regulators (e.g., SO1329). The complemented strain was able to grow when transferred from aerobic to anoxic growth conditions with the tested electron acceptors. The modeled structure for the SO3389 PAS domains was highly similar to the crystal structures of FAD-binding PAS domains that are known O 2 /redox sensors. Based on physiological, genomic, and bioinformatic results, we suggest that the sensory box protein, SO3389, is an O 2 /redox sensor that is involved in optimization of aerobic growth and transitions to anoxia in S. oneidensis MR-1.In the postgenomic era, uncharacterized genes pose a major challenge in biology (16), and many sequenced genomes still contain a large fraction (up to 30 to 40%) of genes without defined physiological roles (13). In fact, many aspects of signaling and stress response most likely reside in this fraction of genes for a given organism and underlie the lack of understanding in physiological responses and control of metabolism. Many uncharacterized genes/proteins are classified as sensory box proteins based upon conserved domains, but signals and cellular responses for most presumptive sensory box proteins are not known.Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, a facultative anaerobe classified as a gammaproteobacterium, can utilize numerous inorganic compounds as electron acceptors (e.g., oxygen, nitrate, and metals). The S. oneidensis MR-1 genome sequence was determined (20), and the most recent annotation of the 5.1-Mb genome estimated 4,467 genes, of which 1,623 had hypothetical functions (28). Many bacteria considered to be "environmental" organisms typica...