Growth on Formic Acid Is Dependent on Intracellular pH Homeostasis for the Thermoacidophilic Methanotroph Methylacidiphilum sp. RTK17.1.

ABSTRACT: Members of the genus Methylacidiphilum, a clade of metabolically flexible thermoacidophilic methanotrophs from the phylum Verrucomicrobia, can utilize a variety of substrates including methane, methanol, and hydrogen for growth. However, despite sequentially oxidizing methane to carbon dioxide via methanol and formate intermediates, growth on formate as the only source of reducing equivalents (i.e., NADH) has not yet been demonstrated. In many acidophiles, the inability to grow on organic acids has presumed that diffusion of the protonated form (e.g., formic acid) into the cell is accompanied by deprotonation prompting cytosolic acidification, which leads to the denaturation of vital proteins and the collapse of the proton motive force. In this work, we used a combination of

SUBMITTER: Carere CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8024496 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature