Toxicity of select organic acids to the slightly thermophilic acidophile <i>Acidithiobacillus caldus</i>

Aston, John E.; Lee, Brady D.; Peyton, Brent M.

doi:10.1897/08-277.1

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…Chemoautotrophic bacteria (e.g., Acidithiobacillus and Leptospirillum species) fix inorganic carbon and release excess organic compounds into environments sustaining heterotrophic and mixotrophic prokaryotes (11,70,80). The close interactions between these distinct trophic groups not only facilitate their continued growth but also result in the co-oxidation of minerals (81,82). During the later stages under extremely acidic conditions (pH Ͻ3), the cooperation between autotrophic and heterotrophic species of microbes likely still contributes to the acidification process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlating Microbial Diversity Patterns with Geochemistry in an Extreme and Heterogeneous Environment of Mine Tailings

Liu

Hua

Chen

et al. 2014

Appl Environ Microbiol

164

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Recent molecular surveys have advanced our understanding of the forces shaping the large-scale ecological distribution of microbes in Earth's extreme habitats, such as hot springs and acid mine drainage. However, few investigations have attempted dense spatial analyses of specific sites to resolve the local diversity of these extraordinary organisms and how communities are shaped by the harsh environmental conditions found there. We have applied a 16S rRNA gene-targeted 454 pyrosequencing approach to explore the phylogenetic differentiation among 90 microbial communities from a massive copper tailing impoundment generating acidic drainage and coupled these variations in community composition with geochemical parameters to reveal ecological interactions in this extreme environment. Our data showed that the overall microbial diversity estimates and relative abundances of most of the dominant lineages were significantly correlated with pH, with the simplest assemblages occurring under extremely acidic conditions and more diverse assemblages associated with neutral pHs. The consistent shifts in community composition along the pH gradient indicated that different taxa were involved in the different acidification stages of the mine tailings. Moreover, the effect of pH in shaping phylogenetic structure within specific lineages was also clearly evident, although the phylogenetic differentiations within the Alphaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, and Firmicutes were attributed to variations in ferric and ferrous iron concentrations. Application of the microbial assemblage prediction model further supported pH as the major factor driving community structure and demonstrated that several of the major lineages are readily predictable. Together, these results suggest that pH is primarily responsible for structuring whole communities in the extreme and heterogeneous mine tailings, although the diverse microbial taxa may respond differently to various environmental conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlating Microbial Diversity Patterns with Geochemistry in an Extreme and Heterogeneous Environment of Mine Tailings

Liu

Hua

Chen

et al. 2014

Appl Environ Microbiol

164

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“…Cyclopropanation is a modification found commonly in many prokaryotes, especially under stress conditions. Cyclopropanation has been found to increase the acid tolerance of E. coli (Chang and Cronan 2002), and is a common modification found in Acidithiobacillus phospholipids (Cowie et al 2009;Aston et al 2009). Methenylation is found less commonly, and usually in eukaryote-associated organisms such as Mycobacterium ssp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deuterium-exchange metabolomics identifies N-methyl lyso phosphatidylethanolamines as abundant lipids in acidophilic mixed microbial communities

et al. 2011

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Natural microbial communities are extremely diverse and contain uncharacterized but functionally important small molecules. By coupling a deuterium (D) labeling technique to high mass accuracy untargeted liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) metabolomic analysis, we found that natural acidophilic microbial biofilms dominated by bacteria of the genus Leptospirillum contained unusual lyso phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) lipids in high abundance (more than 10 nmol/mg of dry biomass). The unusual polar head group structure of these lipids is similar to lipids found in phylogenetically unrelated acidophilic chemoautolithotrophs and may be related to the affinity of these lipids for iron and calcium ions. Correlations of lyso phospholipid and proteome abundance patterns suggest a link between the lyso phospholipids and the UBA-type substrain of Leptospirillum group II. By combining untargeted metabolomics with D exchange we demonstrate the ability to identify cryptic but biologically functional small molecules in mixed microbial communities.

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“…However, this work is significant because pyruvate has been identified in the spent medium filtrate of At. ferrooxidans (Schnaitman and Lundgren 1965), and is toxic to chemolithotrophic autotrophs at low concentrations under acidic conditions (Aston et al 2009;Matin 1978). In addition, previous work has shown that removing inhibitory organic acids can significantly increase metal-leaching rates (Marchland and Silverstein 2003;Olson et al 2003;Wong 2004, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To test for heterotrophic growth, pyruvate, acetate, citrate, 2-ketoglutarate, succinate, or malate were added to the influent to a sub-lethal concentration of 50 lM (Aston et al 2009). To test for mixotrophic growth, parallel experiments were run, using an influent medium containing 10 mM potassium tetrathionate, in addition to the organic acids, to provide an inorganic electron donor.…”

Section: Media Preparationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…caldus to use pyruvate, acetate, citrate, 2-ketoglutarate, succinate, and malate as an electron donor and carbon source (heterotrophic growth) and as a carbon source coupled with the inorganic electron donor, potassium tetrathionate (mixotrophic growth), was studied in chemostat and batch cultures. These organic acids were chosen because of their presence in the spent medium of acidophilic sulfuroxidizing autotrophs (Schnaitman and Lundgren 1965), and their toxicity to acidithiobacilli (Aston et al 2009;Borischewski 1967;Matin 1978).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Growth effects and assimilation of organic acids in chemostat and batch cultures of Acidithiobacillus caldus

Aston

Lee

Peyton

2010

World J Microbiol Biotechnol

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The ability of Acidithiobacillus caldus to grow aerobically using pyruvate, acetate, citrate, 2-ketoglutarate, succinate, and malate as either an electron donor and carbon source (heterotrophic growth), or as a carbon source when potassium tetrathionate was added as an electron donor (mixotrophic growth), was tested in chemostat cultures. Under both heterotrophic and mixotrophic conditions, organic acids were added to a sub-lethal concentration (50 lM). Under mixotrophic conditions, potassium tetrathionate was added to an excess concentration (10 mM). No cell growth was observed under heterotrophic conditions; however, effluent cell concentrations increased over threefold when pyruvate was coupled with potassium tetrathionate. Under these conditions, the effluent pyruvate concentration was reduced to below the detection limit (2 lM), and oxygen consumption increased by approximately 100%. Although pyruvate provided a carbon source in these experiments, ambient carbon dioxide was also available to the cells. To test whether At. caldus could grow mixotrophically using pyruvate as a sole carbon source and potassium tetrathionate as an electron donor, cells were batch cultured in a medium free of dissolved inorganic carbon, and with no carbon dioxide in the headspace. These experiments showed that At. caldus was able to convert between 65 ± 8 and 82 ± 15% of the pyruvate carbon to cellular biomass, depending on the initial pyruvate concentrations. This work is the first to identify a defined organic-carbon source, other than glucose, that At. caldus can assimilate. This has important implications, as mixotrophic and heterotrophic activity has been shown to increase mineral leaching in acidic systems.

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Toxicity of select organic acids to the slightly thermophilic acidophile Acidithiobacillus caldus

Cited by 16 publications

References 31 publications

Correlating Microbial Diversity Patterns with Geochemistry in an Extreme and Heterogeneous Environment of Mine Tailings

Correlating Microbial Diversity Patterns with Geochemistry in an Extreme and Heterogeneous Environment of Mine Tailings

Deuterium-exchange metabolomics identifies N-methyl lyso phosphatidylethanolamines as abundant lipids in acidophilic mixed microbial communities

Growth effects and assimilation of organic acids in chemostat and batch cultures of Acidithiobacillus caldus

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