The reductive glycine pathway allows autotrophic growth of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans

Abstract

Six CO2 fixation pathways are known to operate in photoautotrophic and chemoautotrophic microorganisms. Here, we describe chemolithoautotrophic growth of the sulphate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio desulfuricans (strain G11) with hydrogen and sulphate as energy substrates. Genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic analyses reveal that D. desulfuricans assimilates CO2 via the reductive glycine pathway, a seventh CO2 fixation pathway. In this pathway, CO2 is first reduced to formate, which is reduced and condensed with a second CO2 to generate glycine. Glycine is further reduced in D. desulfuricans by glycine reductase to acetyl-P, and then to acetyl-CoA, which is condensed with another CO2 to form pyruvate. Ammonia is involved in the operation of the pathway, which is reflected in the dependence of the autotrophic growth rate on the ammonia concentration. Our study demonstrates microbial autotrophic growth fully supported by this highly ATP-efficient CO2 fixation pathway.

Investigating the chemolithoautotrophic and formate metabolism of Nitrospira moscoviensis by constraint-based metabolic modeling and 13C-tracer analysis

“…It has also been shown that formate can also be assimilated as a carbon source (9), although the pathway for assimilation currently remains unclear. Metabolic reconstruction suggested that formate could potentially be assimilated either indirectly through oxidation to CO 2 and reassimilation via the rTCA cycle or directly based on the presence of genes encoding a reductive glycine pathway (24) (Supplementary Dataset 1, Supplementary Table 2). Therefore, we used iNmo686 to explore the growth and metabolism of N. moscoviensis on formate compared to chemolithoautotrophic conditions.…”

Systems-informed genome mining for electroautotrophic microbial production

“…cell (39) where cell is the radius of the spherical microbe. The current density can be limited by the maximum rate at which the cells can fix CO2, which depends on the turnover number of the ratelimiting enzyme in the carbon fixation pathway.…”

Biocatalytic C-C Bond Formation for One Carbon Resource Utilization

“…Especially, they redesigned the central carbon metabolism of the model bacterium E. coli for growth on one-carbon compounds (formate and methanol) using the RGP [ 61 ] ( Figure 8 ). Recently, Irene Sánchez-Andrea et al demonstrated that sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio desulfuricans (strain G11) could grow autotrophically via the RGP using hydrogen and sulfate as energy substrates [ 62 ]. This work first demonstrates that autotrophic microbial growth can be fully supported by RGP, which is a highly ATP-efficient CO 2 fixation pathway.…”