Some patterns of B vitamin requirements among neritic marine bacteria

Abstract

Twenty-four different patterns of single and multiple requirements for various B vitamins were demonstrated for 665 cultures of marine bacteria grown in a basal synthetic seawater medium enriched with phosphate, vitamin-free casamino acids, dextrose, and succinate. Among 114 thiamine-requiring isolates, 55 were unable to make the pyrimidine moiety, 19 required thiazole, 13 needed both thiazole and the pyrimidine moiety, while 27 organisms required thiamine o r thiamine pyrophosphate for growth. Among 142 biotin requirers, 22 had to be supplied with biotin, 60 could use either biotin o r biocytin, 54 were able to respond to either biotin, biocytin, or desthiobiotin. Only six cultures could not use biocytin, and required either biotin or desthiobiotin. Various responses of vitamin BI2 requiring cultures indicated special types of specificity for cyanocobalamin and analogues of this vitamin. Computer-sorting at the 0.66 similarity coefficient breaking point arranged a group of 104 isolates into eight clusters. The isolates having biotin o r thiamine requirements, single or in combination with other vitamin needs, appeared to be randomly scattered through the eight clusters. IntroductionIn an earlier paper on the nutritional relationships of neritic marine bacteria, methods for isolating and testing microorganisms for various growth factors were described, and it was reported that numerous isolates from the sea require exogenous supplies of six common B vitamins (Burkholder 1963). In the preliminary report, requirements of 1748 cultures were determined in a series of organic media, designed to show the needs for amino acids or B vitamins required to sustain growth. The general results obtained in that set of determinations were as follows: 29y0 of the cultures could grow in a medium (I) containing seawater enriched with phosphate, ammonium nitrate, and dextrose and succinate as carbon sources; 5% were able to grow in medium I provided that B vitamins, including biotin, thiamine, cyanocobalamin, pantothenate, nicotinic acid: and riboflavin, were added (medium 11); 20% grew in medium I supplemented with amino acids (medium 111); 21% grew in a medium made up of media I1 and I11 combined; while 25% were able to grow only in a rich isolation medium, containing complex materials, such as trypticase, soytone, and yeast extract. Among the iso-

Vitamin B12 and cobalt cycling among diatoms and bacteria in Antarctic sea ice microbial communities

“…Presumably the remaining 2/3 of prokaryotes acquire extracellular cobalamin or have evolved B 12 -independent pathways (Rodionov et al 2003). Experimental and genetic evidence demonstrate that some prokaryotic taxa possess salvage pathways to assimilate extracellular B 12 or its precursors from their environment (Burkholder and Lewis 1968;Woodson and Escalante-Semerena 2004). Our first field experiment demonstrated that organisms in the 0.2-1.0-mm size class assimilated cobalamin roughly in proportion to their biomass and productivity ( Fig.…”

“…Within a Rhô ne estuary culture collection (n 5 232), for example, only 3.5%, 10%, and 14% of clones were truly auxotrophic for cobalamin, biotin, and thiamin, respectively, i.e., no growth without extracellular B vitamin (Berland et al 1976). In Burkholder and Lewis' (1968) collection (n 5 665) of B-vitamin auxotrophs isolated from temperate coastal waters and sediments, .20% of clones required extracellular cobalamin, either alone or combined with other B vitamins. We conclude that salvage pathways for B 12 assimilation were commonly expressed among bacteria at our site and that B 12 auxotrophy among marine prokaryotes is not rare.…”

Prevalent reliance of bacterioplankton on exogenous vitamin B1 and precursor availability

“…B1 is intriguing with respect to bacterial ecology, as B1-prototrophic (de novo synthesizers of the vitamin) and B1-auxotrophic populations (those incapable of de novo B1 biosynthesis) occur in nature, with the latter lacking one or more core B1-biosynthesis genes and requiring exogenous B1 or B1 precursors to survive (1,4,5). Surveys of isolate growth or genomes indicate that most (∼70-80%) bacterial isolates from estuarine/marine waters are B1 prototrophs (4)(5)(6)(7). In notable contrast, isolates representing abundant marine and freshwater bacterioplankton lineages, such as the SAR11 and SAR86 clades and Actinobacteria, are B1 auxotrophs (8)(9)(10).…”

Vitamin B1 ecophysiology of marine picoeukaryotic algae: Strain‐specific differences and a new role for bacteria in vitamin cycling

“…Surveys of the occurrence of vitamin auxotrophy within phytoplankton noted that a large percentage ( 80%) of prymnesiophytes were B1 auxotrophs (Provasoli and Carlucci 1974;Croft et al 2006). In contrast, a majority of diatoms produce B1 (Provasoli and Carlucci 1974), and both B1 producing and auxotrophic bacteria are present in the ocean (MacLeod et al 1954;Burkholder and Lewis 1968).…”