Project description:The sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough possesses four periplasmic hydrogenases to facilitate the oxidation of molecular hydrogen. These include an [Fe], a [NiFeSe] and two [NiFe] hydrogenases encoded by the hyd, hys, hyn1 and hyn2 genes, respectively. In order to understand their cellular functions the expression levels of these hydrogenases, along with the growth rate analysis of mutant strains, was determined during growth on defined media under 3 different conditions. These conditions incuded lactate or hydrogen at either 5% or 50% (vol/vol) used as the sole electron donor for sulfate reduction. Keywords: Electron donor change
Project description:Background. Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough is a sulfate-reducing bacterium (SRB) that is intensively studied in the context of metal corrosion and heavy-metal bioremediation, and SRB populations are commonly observed in pipe and subsurface environments as surface-associated populations. In order to elucidate physiological changes associated with biofilm growth at both the transcript and protein level, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses were done on mature biofilm cells and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The biofilms were cultivated with lactate and sulfate in a continiouslly fed biofilm reactor, and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The functional genomic analysis demonstrated that biofilm cells were different compared to planktonic cells, and the majority of altered abundances for genes and proteins were annotated as hypothetical (unknown function), energy conservation, amino acid metabolism, and signal transduction. Genes and proteins that showed similar trends in detected levels were particularly involved in energy conservation such as increases in an annotated ech hydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase, pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, and rnf oxidoreductase, and the biofilm cells had elevated formate dehydrogenase activity. Several other hydrogenases and formate dehydrogenases also showed an increased protein level, while decreased transcript and protein levels were observed for putative coo hydrogenases as well as a lactate permease and hyp hydrogenases for biofilm cells. Genes annotated for amino acid synthesis and nitrogen utilization were also predominant changers within the biofilm state. Ribosomal transcripts and proteins were notably decreased within the biofilm cells compared to exponential-phase cells but were not as low as levels observed in planktonic, stationary-phase cells. Several putative, extracellular proteins (DVU1012, 1545) were also detected in the extracellular fraction from biofilm cells. Even though both the planktonic and biofilm cells were oxidizing lactate and reducing sulfate, the biofilm cells were physiologically distinct compared to planktonic growth states due to altered abundances of genes/proteins involved in carbon/energy flow and extracellular structures. In addition, average expression values for multiple rRNA transcripts and respiratory activity measurements indicated that biofilm cells were metabolically more similar to exponential-phase cells although biofilm cells are structured differently. The characterization of physiological advantages and constraints of the biofilm growth state for sulfate-reducing bacteria will provide insight into bioremediation applications as well as microbially-induced metal corrosion.
Project description:Background. Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough is a sulfate-reducing bacterium (SRB) that is intensively studied in the context of metal corrosion and heavy-metal bioremediation, and SRB populations are commonly observed in pipe and subsurface environments as surface-associated populations. In order to elucidate physiological changes associated with biofilm growth at both the transcript and protein level, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses were done on mature biofilm cells and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The biofilms were cultivated with lactate and sulfate in a continiouslly fed biofilm reactor, and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The functional genomic analysis demonstrated that biofilm cells were different compared to planktonic cells, and the majority of altered abundances for genes and proteins were annotated as hypothetical (unknown function), energy conservation, amino acid metabolism, and signal transduction. Genes and proteins that showed similar trends in detected levels were particularly involved in energy conservation such as increases in an annotated ech hydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase, pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, and rnf oxidoreductase, and the biofilm cells had elevated formate dehydrogenase activity. Several other hydrogenases and formate dehydrogenases also showed an increased protein level, while decreased transcript and protein levels were observed for putative coo hydrogenases as well as a lactate permease and hyp hydrogenases for biofilm cells. Genes annotated for amino acid synthesis and nitrogen utilization were also predominant changers within the biofilm state. Ribosomal transcripts and proteins were notably decreased within the biofilm cells compared to exponential-phase cells but were not as low as levels observed in planktonic, stationary-phase cells. Several putative, extracellular proteins (DVU1012, 1545) were also detected in the extracellular fraction from biofilm cells. Even though both the planktonic and biofilm cells were oxidizing lactate and reducing sulfate, the biofilm cells were physiologically distinct compared to planktonic growth states due to altered abundances of genes/proteins involved in carbon/energy flow and extracellular structures. In addition, average expression values for multiple rRNA transcripts and respiratory activity measurements indicated that biofilm cells were metabolically more similar to exponential-phase cells although biofilm cells are structured differently. The characterization of physiological advantages and constraints of the biofilm growth state for sulfate-reducing bacteria will provide insight into bioremediation applications as well as microbially-induced metal corrosion. Biofilms grown in reactors were compared to reference samples of reactor, planktonic and batch, planktonic. Each sample had a biological triplicate.
Project description:The sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough possesses four periplasmic hydrogenases to facilitate the oxidation of molecular hydrogen. These include an [Fe], a [NiFeSe] and two [NiFe] hydrogenases encoded by the hyd, hys, hyn1 and hyn2 genes, respectively. In order to understand their cellular functions the expression levels of these hydrogenases, along with the growth rate analysis of mutant strains, was determined during growth on defined media under 3 different conditions. These conditions incuded lactate or hydrogen at either 5% or 50% (vol/vol) used as the sole electron donor for sulfate reduction. Keywords: Electron donor change For each condition 2 unique biological samples were hybridized to 4 arrays that each contained duplicate spots. Genomic DNA was used as universal reference. After total intensity normalization the SAM (significance analysis of microarrays) was used to find differentially expressed genes.
Project description:D. vulgaris is a model sulfate reducing bacteria whose genome encodes a high number of two component systems, including 29 DNA-binding response regulators (RRs) whose functions are unknown, but are very likley to be important to the environmental lifestyle of the organism. We determined the gene targets for 24 of these RRs using purified His-tagged RR and sheared genomic DNA in an in vitro DAP-chip (DNA-affinity-purified - chip) assay. For each RR, one target was identified first using gel shift assays, and qPCR was used to ensure that the target was enriched in the RR-bound DNA before the samples were hybridized to a tiling array. Based on the peaks generated by the array analysis, we determined that at least 200 genes are regulated by two component systems in this organism. We also predicted binding site motifs and validated them for 15 RRs using gel shift assays.
Project description:This set of microarray data was used to compare the effects of D. vulgaris grown syntrophically with a hydrogenotrophic methanogen versus D. vulgaris grown in sulfate-limited monoculture. Keywords: physiological response, one time point (stable continuous culture for both control and treated cells)