This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lie, T. J.
Right arrow Articles by Leadbetter, E. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lie, T. J.
Right arrow Articles by Leadbetter, E. R.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Lie, T. J.
Right arrow Articles by Leadbetter, E. R.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 1999, p. 3328-3334, Vol. 65, No. 8
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Sulfidogenesis from 2-Aminoethanesulfonate (Taurine) Fermentation by a Morphologically Unusual Sulfate-Reducing Bacterium, Desulforhopalus singaporensis sp. nov.

Thomas J. Lie,dagger Michael L. Clawson, Walter Godchaux, and Edward R. Leadbetter*

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2131

Received 15 January 1999/Accepted 20 May 1999

A pure culture of an obligately anaerobic marine bacterium was obtained from an anaerobic enrichment culture in which taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonate) was the sole source of carbon, energy, and nitrogen. Taurine fermentation resulted in acetate, ammonia, and sulfide as end products. Other sulfonates, including 2-hydroxyethanesulfonate (isethionate) and cysteate (alanine-3-sulfonate), were not fermented. When malate was the sole source of carbon and energy, the bacterium reduced sulfate, sulfite, thiosulfate, or nitrate (reduced to ammonia) but did not use fumarate or dimethyl sulfoxide as a terminal electron acceptor for growth. Taurine-grown cells had significantly lower adenylylphosphosulfate reductase activities than sulfate-grown cells had, which was consistent with the notion that sulfate was not released as a result of oxidative C-S bond cleavage and then assimilated. The name Desulforhopalus singaporensis is proposed for this sulfate-reducing bacterium, which is morphologically unusual compared to the previously described sulfate-reducing bacteria by virtue of the spinae present on the rod-shaped, gram-negative, nonmotile cells; endospore formation was not discerned, nor was desulfoviridin detected. Granules of poly-beta -hydroxybutyrate were abundant in taurine-grown cells. This organism shares with the other member of the genus Desulforhopalus which has been described a unique 13-base deletion in the 16S ribosomal DNA. It differs in several ways from a recently described endospore-forming anaerobe (K. Denger, H. Laue, and A. M. Cook, Arch. Microbiol. 168:297-301, 1997) that reportedly produces thiosulfate but not sulfide from taurine fermentation. D. singaporensis thus appears to be the first example of an organism which exhibits sulfidogenesis during taurine fermentation. Implications for sulfonate sulfur in the sulfur cycle are discussed.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-2131. Phone: (860) 486-1931. Fax: (860) 486-1936. E-mail: erl{at}uconnvm.uconn.edu.

dagger Present address: Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 1999, p. 3328-3334, Vol. 65, No. 8
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Lopez-Cortes, A., Fardeau, M.-L., Fauque, G., Joulian, C., Ollivier, B. (2006). Reclassification of the sulfate- and nitrate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris subsp. oxamicus as Desulfovibrio oxamicus sp. nov., comb. nov.. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 56: 1495-1499 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Ridlon, J. M., Kang, D.-J., Hylemon, P. B. (2006). Bile salt biotransformations by human intestinal bacteria. J. Lipid Res. 47: 241-259 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Simmons, S. L., Bazylinski, D. A., Edwards, K. J. (2006). South-Seeking Magnetotactic Bacteria in the Northern Hemisphere. Science 311: 371-374 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Karr, E. A., Sattley, W. M., Rice, M. R., Jung, D. O., Madigan, M. T., Achenbach, L. A. (2005). Diversity and Distribution of Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria in Permanently Frozen Lake Fryxell, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71: 6353-6359 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Novak, R. T., Gritzer, R. F., Leadbetter, E. R., Godchaux, W. (2004). Phototrophic utilization of taurine by the purple nonsulfur bacteria Rhodopseudomonas palustris and Rhodobacter sphaeroides. Microbiology 150: 1881-1891 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Plumb, J. J., Bell, J., Stuckey, D. C. (2001). Microbial Populations Associated with Treatment of an Industrial Dye Effluent in an Anaerobic Baffled Reactor. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67: 3226-3235 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»