Two Marine Desulfotomaculum spp. of Different Origin are Capable of Utilizing Acetone and Higher Ketones

Sophie Kaßner,Bernhard Schink,Jasmin Frey

doi:10.1007/s00284-021-02441-9

Abstract

Degradation of acetone and higher ketones has been described in detail for aerobic and nitrate-reducing bacteria. Among sulfate-reducing bacteria, degradation of acetone and other ketones is still an uncommon ability and has not been understood completely yet. In the present work, we show that Desulfotomaculum arcticum and Desulfotomaculum geothermicum are able to degrade acetone and butanone. Total proteomics of cell-free extracts of both organisms indicated an involvement of a thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzyme, a B12-dependent mutase, and a specific dehydrogenase during acetone degradation. Similar enzymes were recently described to be involved in acetone degradation by Desulfococcus biacutus. As there are so far only two described sulfate reducers able to degrade acetone, D. arcticum and D. geothermicum represent two further species with this capacity. All these bacteria appear to degrade acetone via the same set of enzymes and therefore via the same pathway.

Highlights

Acetone is a common pollutant in nature and originates either from anthropogenic sources like industrial wastewater and oil spills, or from natural production by some solventogenic Clostridium species [1,2,3]
For total proteome analysis of cell-free extracts (CFE) of cells grown with different substrates, samples of CFE were analyzed with high-resolution (Orbitrap) peptide fingerprinting-mass spectrometry by the Proteomics Facility of University of Konstanz
DNA sequence analysis of D. arcticum and D. geothermicum indicated that both contain a gene cluster that was proposed to be crucial for acetone degradation [15]

Summary

Introduction

Acetone is a common pollutant in nature and originates either from anthropogenic sources like industrial wastewater and oil spills, or from natural production by some solventogenic Clostridium species [1,2,3]. Genomic and proteomic studies with Desulfococcus biacutus identified a gene cluster that codes for proteins which were induced during growth with acetone. Proteomic data were obtained for D. arcticum and D. geothermicum to investigate acetone-induced protein production.

Results

Conclusion