Synthesis, storage and degradation of polyglucose in Chlorobium thiosulfatophilum

A green sulfur bacterium from epsomitic Hot Lake, Washington, USA

Hot Lake is a small heliothermal and hypersaline lake in far north-central Washington State (USA) and is limnologically unusual because MgSO₄ rather than NaCl is the dominant salt. In late summer, the Hot Lake metalimnion becomes distinctly green from blooms of planktonic phototrophs. In a study undertaken over 60 years ago, these blooms were predicted to include green sulfur bacteria, but no cultures were obtained. We sampled Hot Lake and established enrichment cultures for phototrophic sulfur bacteria in MgSO₄-rich sulfidic media. Most enrichments turned green or red within 2 weeks, and from green-colored enrichments, pure cultures of a lobed green sulfur bacterium (phylum Chlorobi) were isolated. Phylogenetic analyses showed the organism to be a species of the prosthecate green sulfur bacterium Prosthecochloris. Cultures of this Hot Lake phototroph were halophilic and tolerated high levels of sulfide and MgSO₄. In addition, unlike all recognized species of Prosthecochloris, the Hot Lake isolates grew at temperatures up to 45 °C, indicating an adaptation to the warm summer temperatures of the lake. Photoautotrophy by Hot Lake green sulfur bacteria may contribute dissolved organic matter to anoxic zones of the lake, and their diazotrophic capacity may provide a key source of bioavailable nitrogen, as well.

The Arnon-Buchanan cycle: a retrospective, 1966-2016

For the first decade following its description in 1954, the Calvin-Benson cycle was considered the sole pathway of autotrophic CO₂ assimilation. In the early 1960s, experiments with fermentative bacteria uncovered reactions that challenged this concept. Ferredoxin was found to donate electrons directly for the reductive fixation of CO₂ into alpha-keto acids via reactions considered irreversible. Thus, pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate could be synthesized from CO₂, reduced ferredoxin and acetyl-CoA or succinyl-CoA, respectively. This work opened the door to the discovery that reduced ferredoxin could drive the Krebs citric acid cycle in reverse, converting the pathway from its historical role in carbohydrate breakdown to one fixing CO₂. Originally uncovered in photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria, the Arnon-Buchanan cycle has since been divorced from light and shown to function in a variety of anaerobic chemoautotrophs. In this retrospective, colleagues who worked on the cycle at its inception in 1966 and those presently working in the field trace its development from a controversial reception to its present-day inclusion in textbooks. This pathway is now well established in major groups of chemoautotrophic bacteria, instead of the Calvin-Benson cycle, and is increasingly referred to as the Arnon-Buchanan cycle. In this retrospective, separate sections have been written by the authors indicated. Bob Buchanan wrote the abstract and the concluding comments.

Chlorobaculum tepidum Modulates Amino Acid Composition in Response to Energy Availability, as Revealed by a Systematic Exploration of the Energy Landscape of Phototrophic Sulfur Oxidation

Microbial sulfur metabolism, particularly the formation and consumption of insoluble elemental sulfur (S⁰), is an important biogeochemical engine that has been harnessed for applications ranging from bioleaching and biomining to remediation of waste streams. Chlorobaculum tepidum, a low-light-adapted photoautolithotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacterium, oxidizes multiple sulfur species and displays a preference for more reduced electron donors: sulfide > S⁰ > thiosulfate. To understand this preference in the context of light energy availability, an "energy landscape" of phototrophic sulfur oxidation was constructed by varying electron donor identity, light flux, and culture duration. Biomass and cellular parameters of C. tepidum cultures grown across this landscape were analyzed. From these data, a correction factor for colorimetric protein assays was developed, enabling more accurate biomass measurements for C. tepidum, as well as other organisms. C. tepidum's bulk amino acid composition correlated with energy landscape parameters, including a tendency toward less energetically expensive amino acids under reduced light flux. This correlation, paired with an observation of increased cell size and storage carbon production under electron-rich growth conditions, suggests that C. tepidum has evolved to cope with changing energy availability by tuning its proteome for energetic efficiency and storing compounds for leaner times.

IMPORTANCE

How microbes cope with and adapt to varying energy availability is an important factor in understanding microbial ecology and in designing efficient biotechnological processes. We explored the response of a model phototrophic organism, Chlorobaculum tepidum, across a factorial experimental design that enabled simultaneous variation and analysis of multiple growth conditions, what we term the "energy landscape." C. tepidum biomass composition shifted toward less energetically expensive amino acids at low light levels. This observation provides experimental evidence for evolved efficiencies in microbial proteomes and emphasizes the role that energy flux may play in the adaptive responses of organisms. From a practical standpoint, our data suggest that bulk biomass amino acid composition could provide a simple proxy to monitor and identify energy stress in microbial systems.

Substrate versatility of polyhydroxyalkanoate producing glycerol grown bacterial enrichment culture

Waste-based polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production by bacterial enrichments generally follows a three step strategy in which first the wastewater is converted into a volatile fatty acid rich stream that is subsequently used as substrate in a selector and biopolymer production units. In this work, a bacterial community with high biopolymer production capacity was enriched using glycerol, a non-fermented substrate. The substrate versatility and PHA production capacity of this community was studied using glucose, lactate, acetate and xylitol as substrate. Except for xylitol, very high PHA producing capacities were obtained. The PHA accumulation was comparable or even higher than with glycerol as substrate. This is the first study that established a high PHA content (≈70 wt%) with glucose as substrate in a microbial enrichment culture. The results presented in this study support the development of replacing pure culture based PHA production by bacterial enrichment cultures. A process where mixtures of substrates can be easily handled and the acidification step can potentially be avoided is described.

Coupling dark metabolism to electricity generation using photosynthetic cocultures

We investigated the role of green sulfur bacteria inlight-responsive electricity generation in microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs). We operated MXCs containing either monocultures or defined cocultures of previously enriched phototrophic Chlorobium and anode-respiring Geobacter under anaerobic conditions in the absence of electron donor. Monoculture control MXCs containing Geobacter or Chlorobium neither responded to light nor produced current, respectively. Instead, light-responsive current generation occurred only in coculture MXCs. Current increased above background levels only in the dark and declined slowly over 96 h. This pattern suggested that Chlorobium exhausted intracellular glycogen reserves via dark fermentation to supply an electron donor, presumably acetate, to Geobacter. With medium containing sulfide as the sole photosynthetic electron donor, current generation had a similar and reproducible negative light response. To investigate whether this metabolic interaction also occurred without an electrode, we performed coculture experiments in batch serum bottles. In this setup, sulfide served as the sole electron donor, whose oxidation by Chlorobium was required to provide S(0) as the electron acceptor to Geobacter. Copies of Geobacter 16S rDNA increased approximately 14-fold in batch bottle cocultures containing sulfide compared to those lacking sulfide, and did not decline after termination of sulfide feeding. These results suggest that products of both photosynthesis and dark fermentation by Chlorobium were sufficient both to yield an electrochemical response by Geobacter biofilms, and to promote Geobacter growthin batch cocultures. Our work expands upon the fusion of MXCs with coculture techniques and reinforces the utility of microbial electrochemistry for sensitive, real-time monitoring of microbial interactions in which a metabolic intermediate can be converted to electrical current.

Kinetic modeling of phototrophic biofilms: The PHOBIA model

A kinetic model for mixed phototrophic biofilms is introduced, which focuses on the interactions between photoautotrophic, heterotrophic, and chemoautotrophic (nitrifying) functional microbial groups. Biofilm-specific phenomena are taken into account, such as extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) production by phototrophs as well as gradients of substrates and light in the biofilm. Acid-base equilibria, in particular carbon speciation, are explicitly accounted for, allowing for the determination of pH profiles across the biofilm. Further to previous models reported in literature, the PHOBIA model combines a number of kinetic mechanisms specific to phototrophic microbial communities, such as internal polyglucose storage under dynamic light conditions, phototrophic growth in the darkness using internally stored reserves, photoadaptation and photoinhibition, preference for ammonia over nitrate as N-source and the ability to utilize bicarbonate as a carbon source in the absence of CO(2). The sensitivity of the PHOBIA model to a number of key parameters is analyzed. An example on the potential use of phototrophic biofilms in wastewater polishing is discussed, where their performance is compared with conventional algal ponds. The PHOBIA model is presented in a manner that is compatible with other reference models in the area of water treatment. Its current version forms a theoretical base which is readily extendable once further experimental observations become available.

The influence of light/dark cycle at low light frequency on the desulfurization by a photosynthetic microorganism

H2S dissolved in water can be converted to elementary sulfur or sulfate by the photosynthetic bacterium Chlorobium thiosulfatophilum. The effects of the light/dark cycle on cell growth and the rate of sulfide removal were investigated to develop an appropriate fermentation strategy. Dark fermentation was also studied without addition of H2S and CO2 as electron and carbon sources. Average specific growth rates of bacterial cultures with a continuous supply of H2S and CO2 both in light and dark conditions were occurred in the range of 0.008 to 0.009 h(-1), indicating little dependence on the light/dark cycle, but about 25% of the growth rate that was occurred only in the presence of light. Average H2S removal capacities for cultures grown under the light/dark cycles of 14/10 , 12/12 , and 9/15 h, respectively, with a continuous supply of feed gases, were 0.08, 0.07, and 0.04 micromol H2S.min(-1)/mg protein.l(-1) in the dark, and was slightly less than those in the light. H2S removal capacity with variation of the light/dark cycle was about 30-60% of that obtained in the continuously illuminated cultures. ATP concentration in the dark decreased from 0.43 to 0.37 mg ATP.mg protein(-1) as the daily dark duration decreased from 15 to 10 h. The production rate for lactic acid from a culture grown without a supply of mixtures of H2S and CO2 gases was 0.218 g lactic acid.l(-1).h(-1), much more than that grown with a supply of feed gas mixtures. Time-averaged concentrations of lactic acid produced overall during the light and dark periods were 13.7 g lactic acid.l(-1) during the light/dark cycle of 14/10 h without a supply of feed gas, and 3.1 and 2.4 g lactic acid.l(-1) during the cycles of 9/15 and 14/10 h, respectively, with a supply of feed gas.

Dominant microbial composition and its vertical distribution in saline meromictic Lake Kaiike (Japan) as revealed by quantitative oligonucleotide probe membrane hybridization

Vertical distributions of dominant bacterial populations in saline meromictic Lake Kaiike were investigated throughout the water column and sediment by quantitative oligonucleotide probe membrane hybridization. Three oligonucleotide probes specific for the small-subunit (SSU) rRNA of three groups of Chlorobiaceae were newly designed. In addition, three general domain (Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya)-specific probes, two delta-Proteobacteria-specific probes, a Chlorobiaceae-specific probe, and a Chloroflexi-specific probe were used after optimization of their washing conditions. The abundance of the sum of SSU rRNAs hybridizing with probes specific for three groups of Chlorobiaceae relative to total SSU rRNA peaked in the chemocline, accounting for up to 68%. The abundance of the delta-proteobacterial SSU rRNA relative to total SSU rRNA rapidly increased just below the chemocline up to 29% in anoxic water and peaked at the 2- to 3-cm sediment depth at ca. 34%. The abundance of SSU rRNAs hybridizing with the probe specific for the phylum Chloroflexi relative to total SSU rRNA was highest (31 to 54%) in the top of the sediment but then steeply declined with depth and became stable at 11 to 19%, indicating the robust coexistence of sulfate-reducing bacteria and Chloroflexi in the top of the sediment. Any SSU rRNA of Chloroflexi in the water column was under the detection limit. The summation of the signals of group-specific probes used in this study accounted for up to 89% of total SSU rRNA, suggesting that the DGGE-oligonucleotide probe hybridization approach, in contrast to conventional culture-dependent approaches, was very effective in covering dominant populations.

Effects of acetate and propionate on the performance of a photosynthetic biofilm reactor for sulfide removal

The effects of acetate and propionate on the performance of a recently proposed and characterized photosynthetic biological sulfide removal system have been investigated with a view to predicting this concept's suitability for removing sulfide from wastewater undergoing or having undergone anaerobic treatment. The concept relies on substratum-irradiated biofilms dominated by green sulfur bacteria (GSB), which are supplied with radiant energy in the band 720-780 nm. A model reactor was fed for 7 months with a synthetic wastewater free of volatile fatty acids (VFAs), after which time intermittent dosing of the wastewater with acetate or propionate was begun. Such dosing suppressed the areal net sulfide removal rate by approximately 50%, and caused the principal net product of sulfide removal to switch from sulfate to elemental-S. Similarly suppressed values of this rate were observed when the wastewater was dosed continuously with acetate, and this rate was not significantly affected by changes in the concentration of ammonia-N in the feed. The main net product of sulfide removal was again elemental-S, which was scarcely released into the liquid, however. Sulfate reduction and sulfur reduction were observed when the light supply was interrupted and were inferred to be occurring within the irradiated biofilm. A preexisting conceptual model of the biofilm was augmented with both of these reductive processes, and this augmented model was shown to account for most of the observed effects of VFA dosing. The implications of these findings for the practicality of the technology are considered.

Mathematical model for determining the effects of intracytoplasmic inclusions on volume and density of microorganisms

Procaryotic microorganisms accumulate several polymers in the form of intracellular inclusions as a strategy to increase survival in a changing environment. Such inclusions avoid osmotic pressure increases by tightly packaging certain macromolecules into the inclusion. In the present paper, a model describing changes in volume and density of the microbial cell as a function of the weight of the macromolecule forming the inclusion is derived from simple theoretical principles. The model is then tested by linear regression with experimental data from glycogen accumulation in Escherichia coli, poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate accumulation in Alcaligenes eutrophus, and sulfur accumulation in Chromatium spp. The model predicts a certain degree of hydration of the polymer in the inclusion and explains both the linear relationship between volume of the cell and weight of the polymer and the hyperbolic relationship between density of the cell and weight of the polymer. Other implications of the model are also discussed.

Chlorobium limicola forma thiosulfatophilum : Biocatalyst in the Production of Sulfur and Organic Carbon from a Gas Stream Containing H 2 S and CO 2

Chlorobium limicola forma thiosulfatophilum (ATCC 17092) was grown in a 1-liter continuously stirred tank reactor (800-ml liquid volume) at pH 6.8, 30°C, saturated light intensity, and a gas flow rate of 23.6 ml/min from a gas cylinder blend consisting of 3.9 mol% H 2 S, 9.2 mol% CO 2 , 86.4 mol% N 2 , and 0.5 mol% H 2 . This is the first demonstration of photoautotrophic growth of a Chlorobium sp. on a continuous inorganic gas feed. A significant potential exists for applying this photoautotrophic process to desulfurization and CO 2 fixation of gases containing acidic components (H 2 S and CO 2 ).