Genome wide identification of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (ATCC 23270) transcription factors and comparative analysis of ArsR and MerR metal regulators

Abstract

Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans is a chemolithoautotrophic acidophilic bacterium that obtains its energy from the oxidation of ferrous iron, elemental sulfur, or reduced sulfur minerals. This capability makes it of great industrial importance due to its applications in biomining. During the industrial processes, A. ferrooxidans survives to stressing circumstances in its environment, such as an extremely acidic pH and high concentration of transition metals. In order to gain insight into the organization of A. ferrooxidans regulatory networks and to provide a framework for further studies in bacterial growth under extreme conditions, we applied a genome-wide annotation procedure to identify 87 A. ferrooxidans transcription factors. We classified them into 19 families that were conserved among diverse prokaryotic phyla. Our annotation procedure revealed that A. ferrooxidans genome contains several members of the ArsR and MerR families, which are involved in metal resistance and detoxification. Analysis of their sequences revealed known and potentially new mechanism to coordinate gene-expression in response to metal availability. A. ferrooxidans inhabit some of the most metal-rich environments known, thus transcription factors identified here seem to be good candidates for functional studies in order to determine their physiological roles and to place them into A. ferrooxidans transcriptional regulatory networks.

Molybdenum Reduction to Molybdenum Blue inSerratiasp. Strain DRY5 Is Catalyzed by a Novel Molybdenum-Reducing Enzyme

“…If the sequencing results showed novel characteristics, then the Mo-reducing enzyme should have a new name, NAD(P)H: phosphomolybdate oxidoreductase or, simply, phosphomolybdate reductase. The greater understanding of the underlying mechanism of molybdenum reduction catalyzed by this enzyme could lead to improved processes in the area of bioremediation [33], reducing biocorrosion [34], biomining [35], and biorecycling of molybdenum [36, 37]. …”

Codon usage bias reveals genomic adaptations to environmental conditions in an acidophilic consortium

“…Several efforts have been made to isolate and characterize bacterial species and communities from differing extreme environmental sites [ 13 – 18 ]. At the molecular level, most criteria have been focused on identifying and quantifying particular components of each bacterium, such as proteins involved in iron/sulfur oxidation, metal resistance and biofilm formation [ 19 – 21 ].…”

Shotgun proteomics study of early biofilm formation process ofAcidithiobacillus ferrooxidansATCC 23270 on pyrite

“…Recently, a bioinformatic analysis predicted the presence of 87 TFs in the At. ferrooxidans ATCC 23270 genome, which were classified in 19 families . In our global study, 46 TFs were detected, and 40 of these have been already predicted (Supporting Information Table S4).…”