Project description:Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) catalyses the irreversible decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, which feeds the tricarboxylic acids cycle. We analysed how the lack of PDH affects Pseudomonas putida metabolism. Inactivating PDH generated a strain that can no longer use compounds whose assimilation converges into pyruvate, including sugars and several amino acids. Compounds generating acetyl-CoA supported growth. Interestingly, inactivation of PDH led to loss of the carbon catabolite repression (CCR) effect that inhibits the assimilation of non-preferred compounds when other preferred ones are also present. P. putida can degrade many aromatic compounds, most of which generate acetyl-CoA, and is a useful bacterium for biotransformation and bioremediation processes. However, the genes involved in these metabolic pathways are frequently inhibited by CCR when substrates such as glucose or mixtures of amino acids are also present. Our results show that the PDH-null strain could efficiently degrade aromatic compounds in the presence of other preferred substrates, a condition in which the wild type strain could not mineralise them. Since lack of PDH limits the assimilation of many sugars and amino acids, and relieved CCR, the PDH-null strain could be useful in biotransformation or bioremediation processes that imply growth with mixtures of preferred substrates and aromatic compounds.
Project description:Widely reported discrepancies between metabolic flux and transcripts or enzyme levels in bacterial metabolism imply complex regulation mechanisms need to be considered, especially in new bacterial platforms for bioremediation and bioproduction. Comamonas testosteroni strains, which metabolize various natural and xenobiotic aromatic compounds, represent such platforms whose metabolic regulations are still unknown. Here, we identify analogous multi-level regulation mechanisms in the metabolism of two lignin-related (4-hydroxybenzoate and vanillate) and one plastic-related (terephthalate) aromatic compounds in C. testosteroni KF-1, a wastewater isolate. Transcription-level regulation controlled initial catabolism and cleavage of the compounds, but subsequent carbon fluxes in central carbon metabolism are governed by metabolite-level thermodynamic regulation. Quantitative 13C-fingerprinting of tricarboxylic acid cycle and cataplerotic reactions elucidate key carbon routing that is not evident from enzyme abundance changes. Therefore, as-needed transcriptional activation of aromatic catabolism is coupled with metabolic fine-tuning of central metabolism, thus delineating pathway candidates for different metabolic manipulations.
Project description:The purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris is a model organism for dissecting the energy and electron transfer processes that have evolved in phototrophic organisms. This bacterium is of particular interest because, in addition to driving its metabolism via solar energy capture, it is capable of nitrogen and carbon dioxide fixation, producing hydrogen and utilising a wide range of organic compounds. Understanding these processes underpins the potential exploitation of Rhodopseudomonas palustris for synthetic biology, biohydrogen production and bioremediation, for example. Like other purple bacteria, Rhodopseudomonas palustris has 2 light-harvesting (LH) systems: LH1 and LH2. The former has already been extensively characterised by X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM. The aim of this proteomics project is to provide complementary information to support the cryo-EM mapping of LH2 structure.
Project description:Geobacter metallireducens serves as the model for Geobacter species that anaerobically oxidize aromatic contaminants with the reduction of Fe(III) oxides in contaminated sediments. Analysis of the complete G. metallireducens genome sequence revealed a 307 kb region, designated the aromatics island, not found in closely related species that do not degrade aromatics. This region encoded enzymes for the degradation of benzoate and other aromatic compounds with the exception of the genes for the conversion of toluene to benzyol-CoA which were in a different region of the genome. Predicted aromatic degradation pathways were similar to those described in more well-studied organisms except that no genes encoding a benzoyl-CoA reductase were present. A genome-wide comparison of gene transcript levels during growth on benzoate versus growth on acetate demonstrated that the majority of the most significant increases in transcript levels were among genes within the aromatics island. Of particular interest were highly expressed genes that encode redox proteins of unknown function, one of which had a homolog outside the aromatics island that was also highly expressed. There was also an apparent shift in the acetyl-CoA oxidation pathway to the use of a putative ATP-yielding succinyl-CoA synthase during growth on benzoate. These results provide new insights into the pathways for the degradation of aromatic compounds in G. metallireducens, indicate genes whose role in benzoate metabolism need to be evaluated further, and suggest target genes whose expression may be monitored in order to better assess the degradation of aromatic compounds in contaminated environments. Keywords: Metabolism