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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2009, p. 286-291, Vol. 75, No. 1
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AEM.00607-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia,1 Bioengineering Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia,2 Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia,3 L'Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Nantes, France4
Received 13 March 2008/ Accepted 22 October 2008
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- or β-keratin) or carbohydrate (cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose, chitin, or agarose) biological polymers, were filled with thermal water and incubated at the same sites, with the contents of the tubes freely accessible to the hydrothermal fluid. As a result, several enrichment cultures growing in situ on different polymeric substrates were obtained. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of 16S rRNA gene fragments obtained after PCR with Bacteria-specific primers showed that the bacterial communities developing on carbohydrates included the genera Caldicellulosiruptor and Dictyoglomus and that those developing on proteins contained members of the Thermotogales order. DGGE analysis performed after PCR with Archaea- and Crenarchaeota-specific primers showed that archaea related to uncultured environmental clones, particularly those of the Crenarchaeota phylum, were present in both carbohydrate- and protein-degrading communities. Five isolates obtained from in situ enrichments or corresponding natural samples of water and sediments represented the bacterial genera Dictyoglomus and Caldanaerobacter as well as new archaea of the Crenarchaeota phylum. Thus, in situ enrichment and consequent isolation showed the diversity of thermophilic prokaryotes competing for biopolymers in microbial communities of terrestrial hot springs. |
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Several attempts have previously been made to accumulate the planktonic forms of thermophilic prokaryotes on surfaces incubated in continuous contact with hydrothermal fluids. A "vent cap" incubated in deep-sea hydrothermal fluid of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge accumulated many new thermophilic prokaryotes identified by their 16S rRNA sequences (20). Colonization by hyperthermophilic archaea of glass slide surfaces during their incubation in New Zealand hot springs was also reported (15). In this work, we tried to enrich thermophilic microorganisms with hydrolytic activity trapped in tubes containing insoluble biopolymers, allowing free access to surrounding hydrothermal fluids.
In a September 2005 expedition to Uzon Caldera, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, seven hot springs were selected for in situ enrichment of thermophilic prokaryotes with hydrolytic activities (Table 1). All springs were characterized by fairly high water temperature (from 68 to 87°C) and neutral or slightly acidic pH (4.1 to 7.0). Falcon tubes (15 ml) containing 200 to 300 mg of polymeric substrates (carboxymethyl cellulose [CMC; Sigma], microcrystalline cellulose [Chemapol, Czech Republic], chitin [crab chitin; Bioprogress, Russia], agarose [agarose MP; Boehringer, Mannheim, Germany], albumin [bovine; Sigma], casein [bovine; Sigma],
-keratin [porcine hair obtained from SIFDDA Co., Plouvara, France], and β-keratin [ground feathers]) were filled with thermal water, sealed with screw caps, and placed in the spring studied. One-millimeter perforations in the caps allowed exchange of fluid into and out of the tube without loss of insoluble substrates precipitated at the bottom of the tube. After 7 days of incubation, visible degradation of polymeric substrates was observed in more than half of the tubes, and the water covering the substrates turned turbid. Light microscopy revealed abundant microbial growth in the tubes with degraded substrates. The number and morphology of cells depended both on the substrate and on the spring characteristics (Table 1).
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TABLE 1. Characteristics of thermal sites of Uzon Caldera selected for in situ enrichment and enrichment cultures obtained from these sites
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- and β-keratins represented the genus Fervidobacterium, and those growing on cellulose and its derivatives represented the genera Dictyoglomus and Caldicellulosiruptor (Fig. 1; also see Table S2 in the supplemental material). DGGE with archaeal primers revealed the presence of noncultivated archaea in cellulose-degrading enrichments. Organisms present in cellulolytic enrichments 1521cmc and 1523rope represented a deep lineage in the Crenarchaeota phylum ("unknown Desulfurococcales"), to which many uncultured organisms from Yellowstone, Iceland, and Kamchatka hot springs were found to belong (10, 12, 18). The first cultivated organism of this group is "Fervidococcus fontis," isolated from Treshchinny Spring, Uzon Caldera (18).
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FIG. 1. Neighbor-joining tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showing the phylogenetic positions of bacterial components (represented by DGGE bands) of field enrichment cultures and related microorganisms. Bootstrap values (shown as percentages for 1,000 repetitions) are located at the branching points. The bar represents 10 substitutions per 100 nucleotide positions. GenBank numbers are indicated in brackets. Methanosarcina barkeri strain DSM 800, taken as an outgroup, was used to root the tree.
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FIG. 2. Neighbor-joining tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showing the phylogenetic positions of archaeal components (represented by DGGE bands) of field enrichment cultures and related microorganisms. Bootstrap values (shown as percentages for 1,000 repetitions) are located at the branching points. The bar represents 10 substitutions per 100 nucleotide positions. GenBank numbers are indicated in brackets. Methanosarcina barkeri strain DSM 800, taken as an outgroup, was used to root the tree.
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-keratin, casein, and gelatin) and cellulose, respectively. Isolate 1507-2 possessed coccoid cells, grew on
-keratin or casein at 70°C and pH 6.0, and was found to be an archaeon of the Crenarchaeota phylum, representing a cluster of the so-called "unknown Desulfurococcales" (12, 18). Isolates 1507-9 and 1521-1 had filamentous cells, occasionally forming clew-like structures (Fig. 3b and c). They grew at 70 and 80°C and pH 6.5 on agarose and CMC, respectively, and represented the genus Dictyoglomus. |
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TABLE 2. Thermophilic isolates with hydrolytic activity obtained from in situ enrichments
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FIG. 3. Electron micrographs of negatively stained (25) strains 1523-1 (a) and 1507-9 (b) and a thin section (25) of cells of strain 1521-1 (c). Bars, 1 µm.
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Caldicellulosiruptor representatives detected in enrichment cultures are known as active cellulolytics occurring in terrestrial hot springs of different geographic locations (2, 6, 19), including Kamchatka (26). In contrast to what was found for Caldicellulosiruptor species, representatives of Thermoanaerobacteraceae were not known to be able to grow on cellulose. Newly isolated Caldanaerobacter sp. strain 1523vc used cellulose as the substrate for growth, extending our knowledge of the phenotypic diversity in this family. However, cellulase activity detected in the supernatant of strain 1523vc was relatively low: 1 µm of reduced sugars produced per minute per ml of sample. Dictyoglomus thermophilum, the type species of this genus, was described as growing only on soluble substrates (22), while Dictyoglomus turgidus, obtained previously from Uzon Caldera, was found to grow weakly on solid polysaccharides, including microcrystalline cellulose (25). In this work, representatives of the genus Dictyoglomus were found in the cellulose-developing enrichments, and newly isolated strain 1521-1, belonging to Dictyoglomus, was able to grow abundantly on cellulose and CMC, producing extracellular cellulase. The rates of CMC hydrolysis produced by the supernatant of isolate 1521-1 grown on CMC and microcrystalline cellulose at 70°C and pH20°C 8.0 were evaluated as 124 µm and 36 µm of reduced sugars produced per minute per ml of the sample, respectively.
Agarose was previously found to be hydrolyzed by a new thermophilic bacterium, Caldanaerobacter uzonensis, isolated from Thermophilny spring (I. Kozina, M. Hodges, K. Lee, I. Wagner, J. Wiegel, I. Kublanov, and E. Bonch-Osmolovskaya, submitted for publication), and the archaeon Desulfurococcus fermentans (17). In this work, we found that high-melting-point agarose was actively degraded in enrichments 1523ag and 1507ag by Dictyoglomus sp., easily identified by its specific morphology. The supernatant of agarose-degrading enrichment culture 1523ag showed extracellular glycosidase activity (as determined by a qualitative assay) at 75°C and pH20°C.
The presence of proteinases and their molecular weights were determined by a zymography method (9, 27). Peptidase activity was determined using synthetic chromogenic substrate N-succinyl-L-alanyl-L-alanyl-L-prolyl-L-phenylalanine p-nitroanilide (Suc-AAPF-pNa; Sigma Aldrich) as described in reference 9. Chymotrypsin-like (pH20°C 6.6) activity was obtained with N-benzyloxycarbonyl-L-alanyl-L-alanyl-L-p-nitrophenylalanyl-L-phenylalanine
-morpholinopropylamide (28), synthesized and characterized at the Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. Sixty microliters of a 2.5 mM solution of Z-AAF(NO2)F-APM in a 5% water solution of DMFA (N,N-dimethylformamide) was added to 920 µl of 0.02 M MOPS (morpholinepropanesulfonic acid), pH20°C 6.6 (chymotrypsin-like activity), or of 0.1 M Na-acetate, pH20°C 4.0 (pepsin-like activity), with 5 mM CaCl2. Upon stabilization of temperature, the reaction was started by adding 20 µl of a proteinase-containing sample. The solution was incubated for 5 min. During incubation, absorbance was measured at 320 nm (
320 = 900 M–1 cm–1). The control samples were the same reaction mixture but devoid of proteinase solution. Table 3 summarizes the proteolytic activities of the studied enrichment cultures.
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TABLE 3. Proteolytic activities of in situ enrichment cultures from Uzon Caldera hot springs
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220 kDa and a neutral-to-alkaline pH optimum, detected in enrichment 1523cas (Table 3), was produced by Caldanaerobacter sp. strain 1523-1, isolated from the same enrichment. Production of extracellular proteinases with keratinolytic activity was previously shown for several representatives of the Thermanaerobacter-Caldanaerobacter group (21, 27). Indeed, in the supernatant of strain 1523-1 culture growing on keratin, we found a
220-kDa thermostable keratinase, showing broad pH (6.0 to 10.0) and temperature (30 to 80°C) ranges of activity, with an optimum at pH 7.0 and 66°C. Addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (optimally 0.35 mM) caused a 10-fold increase of activity of keratinase from strain 1523-1, while calcium positively influenced on the stability of the enzyme: 10-fold higher activity after 15 min of treatment at 100°C in the presence of 5 mM of Ca2+.
The presence of proteinases with molecular masses around
50 kDa was detected in in situ enrichments 1507cas and 1523a-ker populated mainly by coccoid cells, presumably of archaea (Table 1). Production of proteinases was shown for several hyperthermophilic archaea of both kingdoms (3, 8, 23). However, the archaea detected in proteinolytic enrichments were not hyperthermophiles but rather extreme thermophiles, growing at 70°C, and were distantly related to the Thermofilum genus (1510b-ker 2) or belonged to the "Fervidococcus" group (1510b-ker 1 and 1507cas 1) (Fig. 2).
In summary, the in situ enrichment cultures obtained in the presence of different polymeric substrates from Uzon hot springs demonstrate the diversity of thermophilic prokaryotes with hydrolytic activity inhabiting these springs. The obtained evidence also revealed a competition for substrates between different phylogenetic groups of prokaryotes and indicated a possible ecological function for the widespread but (until now) uncultured organisms.
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Published ahead of print on 31 October 2008. ![]()
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/. ![]()
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