AUTHOR=Chowdhury Nilanjan Pal , Alberti Lydia , Linder Mark , Müller Volker 

TITLE=Exploring Bacterial Microcompartments in the Acetogenic Bacterium Acetobacterium woodii

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.593467

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2020.593467

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>The strictly anaerobic acetogenic bacterium <italic>Acetobacterium woodii</italic> is metabolically diverse and grows on variety of substrates which includes H<sub>2</sub> + CO<sub>2</sub>, sugars, alcohols and diols. It is unique in producing bacterial microcompartments (BMC) during growth on different substrates such as 1,2-propanediol, 2,3-butanediol, ethanol or fructose. In this study, we analyzed the genetic organization and expression of the BMC genes within the <italic>A. woodii</italic> genome, the previously described 18 gene <italic>pdu</italic> cluster as well as four other cluster potentially encoding one or two shell proteins. Expression analysis of respective gene clusters revealed that the <italic>pdu</italic> gene cluster is highly expressed during growth on 1,2-PD, 2,3-BD, ethanol and ethylene glycol. The promoter region upstream of the <italic>pduA</italic> gene was identified and used to establish a reporter gene assay based on chloramphenicol acetyl transferase as a reporter protein. The reporter gene assay confirmed the qPCR data and demonstrated that 1,2-PD is superior over ethanol and ethylene glycol as inducer. BMCs were enriched from cells grown on 2,3- BD and 1,2-PD and shown to have typical structure in electron micrographs. Biochemical analyses revealed several of the protein encoded by the <italic>pdu</italic> cluster to be part of the isolated BMCs. These data demonstrate a very unique situation in <italic>A. woodii</italic> in which apparently one BMC gene cluster in expressed during growth on different substrates.</p>