Project description:The increasing global human population has been associated with the development of high-density urban communities. This has led to increase in fossil energy consumption and posed serious threats to the environment and human health. Organosulfur compounds found in crude oil and transportation fuels such as diesel have gained strong attention because they are hazardous to human and the ecosystem. Moreover, the sulfur oxide gases resulting from fuel combustion are a major cause of acid rain. Governments and environmental organizations worldwide have recognized the problem and implemented strict regulations and legislations that limit the amount of sulfur in diesel. Hydrodesulphurization (HDS) is commonly used by oil refineries to reduce sulfur content in refined fuels. However, HDS has many disadvantages. It is costly, environmentally polluting, and not sufficiently efficient. Accordingly, there has been increasing interest in the development of alternative desulfurization technologies to circumvent the problems associated with the conventional HDS. Biodesulfurization (BDS) has emerged as an alternative or a complement technology to overcome the drawbacks of the conventional HDS. BDS exploits the ability of dedicated microorganisms to remove sulfur from many organosulfur compounds that are commonly found in crude oil and refined fuels. As compared to thermochemical treatments like HDS, BDS is environmentally friendly, cost-effective and active towards organosulfur compounds that escape the conventional HDS. Nonetheless, lack of deep understanding of the physiology and metabolism, particularly sulfur metabolism, of biodesulfurizing microbes has impeded the development and implementation of a commercially viable BDS process. In this project, we apply metabolomics and proteomics to better understand the physiological adaptations and sulfur metabolism of in a model biodesulfurization-competent strain Rhodococcus qingshengii IGTS8.

2021-08-09 | PXD021362 | Pride

Isolation and identification of a TetR family protein that regulates the biodesulfurization operon.

Project description:Biodesulfurization helps in removal of sulfur from organosulfur present in petroleum fractions. All microorganisms isolated to date harbor a desulfurization operon consisting of three genes dszA, -B and -C which encode for monooxygenases (DszA & C) and desulfinase (DszB). Most of the studies have been carried out using dibenzothiophene as the model organosulfur compound, which is converted into 2 hydroxybiphenyl by a 4S pathway which maintains the calorific value of fuel. There are few studies reported on the regulation of this operon. However, there are no reports on the proteins which can enhance the activity of the operon. In the present study, we used in vitro and in vivo methods to identify a novel TetR family transcriptional regulator from Gordonia sp. IITR100 which functions as an activator of the dsz operon. Activation by TetR family regulator resulted in enhanced levels of desulfurization enzymes in Gordonia sp. IITR100. Activation was observed only when the 385 bp full length promoter was used. Upstream sequences between - 385 and - 315 were found to be responsible for activation. We provide evidence that the TetR family transcription regulator serves as an activator in other biodesulfurizing microorganisms such as Rhodococcus erythropolis IGTS8 and heterologous host Escherichia coli. This is the first report on the isolation of a possible transcriptional regulator that activates the desulfurization operon resulting in improved biodesulfurization.

| S-EPMC6534649 | biostudies-literature

The natural product co-evolved pyrroloquinoline quinone operon enhances their production when heterologously expressed in a variety of Streptomycetes

Project description:Streptomyces has the largest repertoire of natural product biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), yet developing a universal engineering strategy for each Streptomyces species is challenging. Given that some Streptomyces species have larger BGC repertoires than others, we hypothesized that a set of genes co-evolved with BGCs to support biosynthetic proficiency must exist in those strains, and that their identification may provide universal strategies to improve the productivity of other strains. We show here that genes co-evolved with natural product BGCs in Streptomyces can be identified by phylogenomics analysis. Among the 597 genes that co-evolved with polyketide BGCs, 11 genes in the “coenzyme” category have been examined, including a gene cluster encoding for the co-factor pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ). When the pqq gene cluster was engineered into 11 Streptomyces strains, it enhanced production of 16,385 metabolites, including 36 known natural products with up to 40-fold improvement and several activated silent gene clusters. This study provides a new engineering strategy for improving polyketide production and discovering new biosynthetic gene clusters.

2024-02-12 | PXD049454 |

Biodesulfurization traditional line-up microbial community analysis

Project description:Effect of biodesulfurization process conditions on the microbial composition and physiological activity

| PRJEB27163 | ENA

Fucose-mediated transcriptional activation of the fcs operon by FcsR in Streptococcus pneumoniae

Project description:In this study, we explore the impact of fucose on the transcriptome of S. pneumoniae D39. The expression of various genes and operons, including the fucose uptake PTS and utilization operon (fcs operon), was altered in the presence of fucose. By means of quantitative RT-PCR and β-galactosidase analysis, we demonstrate the role of the transcriptional regulator FcsR, present upstream of the fcs operon, as a transcriptional activator of the fcs operon. We also predict a 19-bp putative FcsR regulatory site (5’-ATTTGAACATTATTCAAGT-3’) in the promoter region of the fcs operon. The functionality of this predicted FcsR regulatory site was further confirmed by promoter-truncation experiments, where deletion of half of the FscR regulatory site or full deletion led to the abolition of expression of the fcs operon.

2015-04-23 | GSE65673 | GEO

in silico Serotyping

Project description:A set of 520 genomes where serotyped with two in silico typing tools

| PRJEB30317 | ENA

Full-scale gas biodesulfurization installation from Indonesia

Project description:Biomass sample from Indonesian gas biodesulfurization installation analyzes on 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing

| PRJEB32000 | ENA