Erythrobacter Litoralis
Classification(1)
Higher order taxa
Cellular organisms; Bacteria; Proteobacteria; Alphaproteobacteria: Sphingomonadales; Erythrobacteraceae; Erythrobacter.
Species
Erythrobacter litoralis
Description and significance
The bacteria are aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs which use the sulfur derivatives as electron donor and oxygen as electron acceptor. This bacterium is found in the nutrient rich coastal salt seawater. This bacterium as other bacteria in the family gives the smooth red orange color because of its large amount of caroteniods. In the family, this bacterium is similar to others in the form of having no pore on its outer membrane and the bacteria is a gram negative. One of the important aspect is that this family bacteria can not move since they are non motile. Besides the important of the bacteria in recycling the inorganic and the organic compounds, this particular bacterium can also resist the effect of the tellurite and also be able to reduce the compound. This is important for the cleaning up of the environment because the tellurite is also toxic to the other organism including the humans. That ability is similar to the Erythromicrobium. Therefore it is important to sequence the genome of these bacteria in order to compare to the genome of the erythromicrobium. The sequenced genome will help us in understanding the structure of the protein that can help the bacteria in fighting and reducing the tellurite. Sequencing the genome may reveal the relationship between the bacterium and the erythromicrobium. And how are they related in the evolution scale.
Erythrobacter litoralis is the marine bacteria that can give the color of smooth red-orange. This bacterium can be found at the floor of the ocean or in nutrient coastal seawater. One can find this bacterium at the Sargasso Sea. This bacterium is useful in its function of recycling the organic matters. Also the bacteria can use some of the inorganic matter as carbon source. It is important to sequence the genome of this bacterium for its ability to resist the tellurite which is a toxic to the bacteria and other organism including the human. Not only the bacterium is able to resist the tellurite, the bacteria can also reduce the tellurite in order to help the movement of the electron. live at not high pressure environment. Because it. The genome of the bacteria can help scientist to understand more about other pathogen bacteria because of their close relationship. The study of the bacteria genome can explain the LOV- histidine kinase system that is used by other pathogen such as name. also the genome of this bacterium can help in increasing the knowledge of the marine microbes and help the study of the ocean’s biological process and the chemical processes. The study of the genome can help the scientist to see whether there is gene transfer between the cell and the other anaerobic cells. This bacteria is halotolerant aerobic phototroph and a gram negative. This bacterium is distributed in the euphotic zone. This bacterium belongs to the family that can use organic matter as energy source in the aerobic reaction. One of the significant of this family is that members of the family are able to produce bacteriochlorophyll-a which is normal presented in anaerobic organism. The bacterichlrophyll a is used for harvesting light. Yet these bacteria have low level of the photosynthetic unit in cells. Carotenoids of these bacteria which give the microbes their smooth red orange color inhibit light harvesting of the bacteriochlorophyll a. these bacteria can not grow photosynthetically under anaerobic conditions.
Cell structure and metabolism
cell structure
The erythrobacter litoralis is a gram negative cell with no porin on its outer membrane. In general, the erythrobacter litoralis has no motility; yet the study of the strain (number) shows the motility of the bacteria. The appearance of these bacteria includes the rod shape and the chain of up to 10 individual bacteria. in the strain number, the outer appearance also has pili and the lagella. These bacteria have the bacteriochlorophyll and 2 types of carotenoids which are responsible for the smooth red and orange of the bacteria. carotenoids bacteriorubixanthianal and erythroxanthin sulfate are those 2 types. According to the paper, the erythrobacter litoralis is an alpha subclass 4 with orange color and LH1 (light harvesting complex 1). There no LH2 in these bacteria in these bacteria.
The bacteria can resist the antibiotic as the Nalidixic acid, Polymyxin B, and the Streptomycin. These bacteria can not resist the Chloramphenicol, erythromycin, Penicillin, tetracycline. Please research about the drugs.
metabolism Metobolism
One thing to be certain is the requirement of the presence of the oxygen for these aerobic bacteria. Although there are bacteriochlorophyll a in the cell, the bacteria can not survive without the oxygen as electron acceptor. These bacteria can reduce the organic matter and the inorganic matter as energy source. Any organic matters will be used as energy source because of the bacteria’s metabolism can utilize those matters. To the inorganic, the bacteria will reduce the sulfur derivatives with the help of the harvested sun light energy. The erythrobacter litoralis bacteria can be grown on organic carbon such as the acetate, butyrate, glucose, and pyruvate. Those are used as the simple carbon sources. It is possible that the bacteria can aslo use the glutamate and leucine as carbon sources. According to the paper, these the bacteria can also use the ammonium, urea, amino acids as nitrogen sources. Yet the bacteria can not use the nitrate or the diazotrophic growth. what is the growth? . Here the paper explains that the inability of growing on the nitrate is a common theme for the marine heterotrophic prokaryotes where the ntrogen is mostly in the dissolved organic matter.
Genome structure
Of all the erythrobacter litoralis, only the strain HTCC2594 genome is completely sequenced. Here the genome reveals the strain has the length of 3,052,398 nucleotides to contain 3056 genes. The genome encodes for 3011 proteins and 45 structural RNAs. There is about 63.1 % of the GCGC in the genome. There are about 15 proteins for the carbohydrate metabolism, 9 proteins for the lipid metabolism, 16 proteins for the amino acid metabolism, and many more proteins for other functions. Must also talk about the eli genes.
Ecology
These bacteria live in environment with sufficient sun light and adequate amount of oxygen is needed for their metabolisms. Euphotic zones, where there are at least 1 % of the sun light available, are places that Erythrobacter litoralis can be found mostly. Although the first aerobic phototrophic bacterium was found in Japan, the erythrobacteria family can be found well distributed around the world. These erythrobacter litoralis can be seen in oceanic coastal line or the lakes. The fact that the erythrobacter family has many species with different color indicates that the ranges of level living from the surface are different
Pathology
Although No pathogen caused by the erythrolitoralis has been observed, the bacteria share the same LoV- histidine kinase system with the pathogen that apply the system in navigation within the host.
Application
Potassium tellurite (K2TeO3)is used together with agar as part of a selective medium for growth of some bacteria (Clauberg medium).
Because of the ability of reducing the toxic tellurite, the bacteria will be used in the process of cleaning up the tellurite oxides which is also toxic to other bacteria and other organisms including the human. The tellurite will be reduced to give the insoluble crystal metal tellurium. Also the tellurium will be accumulated in the bacteria with a large amount. The erythrobacter litoralis can store the metal tellurium up to 30% of its cell’s volume. This gives these bacteria a potential recognition as the bioremediation. Also this ability to store the tellurium metal of the bacteria can be used in extracting the tellurium from the tellurium dioxide(TeO2)and tellurite ion(TeO32-)which are refered as the Tellurite in the mineral ore. The third application of the bacteria is that the bacteria’s genome could provide informations about the LOV-histidine kinase system which is used by the pathogen during the invasion of the host. The bacteria can also be used for their ability of breaking down the organic matter which helps in the process of recycling nutrients.
