Project description:Acetic acid bacteria are obligately aerobic alphaproteobacteria that have a unique ability to incompletely oxidize various alcohols and sugars to organic acids. The ability of these bacteria to incompletely oxidize ethanol to acetate has been historically utilized for vinegar production. The mechanism of switching between incomplete oxidation and assimilatory oxidation and the control of energy and carbon metabolism in acetic acid bacteria are not fully understood. To understand the physiology and molecular biology of acetic acid bacteria better, we determined the draft genome sequence of Acetobacter aceti NBRC 14818, which is the type strain of the genus. Based on this draft genome sequence, the transcriptome profiles in A. aceti cells grown on ethanol, acetate, glucose, or mix of ethanol and glucose was determined by using NimbleGen Prokaryotic Expression array (4x72K).
Project description:Acetic acid bacteria are obligately aerobic alphaproteobacteria that have a unique ability to incompletely oxidize various alcohols and sugars to organic acids. The ability of these bacteria to incompletely oxidize ethanol to acetate has been historically utilized for vinegar production. The mechanism of switching between incomplete oxidation and assimilatory oxidation and the control of energy and carbon metabolism in acetic acid bacteria are not fully understood. To understand the physiology and molecular biology of acetic acid bacteria better, we determined the draft genome sequence of Acetobacter aceti NBRC 14818, which is the type strain of the genus. Based on this draft genome sequence, the transcriptome profiles in A. aceti cells grown on ethanol, acetate, glucose, or mix of ethanol and glucose was determined by using NimbleGen Prokaryotic Expression array (4x72K). Acetobacter aceti NBRC14818 was cultivated in the medium containing ethanol, acetate, glucose, or mix of ethanol and glucose as carbon sources in Erlenmeyer flask with rotary shaking. Total RNA was extracted when optical density at 600 nm was 0.3-0.4. The experiment was performed in duplicate independent cultures.
Project description:Acetobacter species play an import role during cocoa fermentation. However, Acetobacter ghanensis and Acetobacter senegalensis are outcompeted during fermentation of the cocoa pulp-bean mass, whereas Acetobacter pasteurianus prevails. In this paper, an in silico approach aimed at delivering some insights into the possible metabolic adaptations of A. ghanensis LMG 23848T and A. senegalensis 108B, two candidate starter culture strains for cocoa fermentation processes, by reconstructing genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs). Therefore, genome sequence data of a selection of strains of Acetobacter species were used to perform a comparative genomic analysis. Combining the predicted orthologous groups of protein-encoding genes from the Acetobacter genomes with gene-reaction rules of GEMs from two reference bacteria, namely a previously manually curated model of A. pasteurianus 386B (iAp386B454) and two manually curated models of Escherichia coli (EcoCyc and iJO1366), allowed to predict the set of reactions present in A. ghanensis LMG 23848T and A. senegalensis 108B. The predicted metabolic network was manually curated using genome re-annotation data, followed by the reconstruction of species-specific GEMs. This approach additionally revealed possible differences concerning the carbon core metabolism and redox metabolism among Acetobacter species, pointing to a hitherto unexplored metabolic diversity. More specifically, the presence or absence of reactions related to citrate catabolism and the glyoxylate cycle for assimilation of C2 compounds provided not only new insights into cocoa fermentation but also interesting guidelines for future research. In general, the A. ghanensis LMG 23848T and A. senegalensis 108B GEMs, reconstructed in a semi-automated way, provided a proof-of-concept toward accelerated formation of GEMs of candidate functional starter cultures for food fermentation processes.
