Erythrobacter Litoralis

Classification(1)

Higher order taxa

Cellular organisms; Bacteria; Proteobacteria; Alphaproteobacteria: Sphingomonadales; Erythrobacteraceae; Erythrobacter.

Species

NCBI: Taxonomy

Erythrobacter litoralis

Description and significance

The Erythrobacter Litoralis are gram negative bacteria and they are halotolerant aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs marine bacteria. This species is found in the nutrient rich coastal salt seawater. Erythrobacter Litoralis can be found at the Sargasso Sea.These bacteria are well distributed in the euphotic zone. Erythrobacter Litoralis can only grow under aerobic conditions. Like all of other species in the Erythrobacter genus, the Erythrobacter Litoralis species also have no poreformin.

Erythrobacter Litoralis contain bacteriochlorophyll a and large amount of Carotenoids. The bacteriochlorophyll a are found in the Erythrobacter Litoralis's harvesting system.The presence of the bacteriochlorophyll a, hoever, does not give the Erythrobacter Litoralis the ability of growing phototrophically under anaerobic conditions. The Carotenoids display the smooth red orange color of this species of the Erythrobacter gennus.There in not sure whether the species Erythrobacter Litoralis have any motility. Yet the Erythrobacter Litoralis strain HTCC 25 has flagella and pili for motility.

These Erythrobacter Litoralis are important in recycling of the inorganic and the organic matters, in reducing the toxic Tellurite, in the studying of the LOV-histidine Kinase system. Therefore it is important to sequence the genome of these bacteria. because of the Erythrobacter Litoralis sharing the same ability of reducing the ellurite with Erythromicrobium, the sequenced genome can reveal the relationship between them. Also the sequenced genome may explain the rise of the aerobic phototrophic bacteria and the places of those bacteria in the evolution scale. The study of the genome can help the scientist to see whether there is gene transfer between the cell and the other anaerobic cells.

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

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 the Erythrobacter Litoralis is not a pathogen, 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, and therefore, they help recycling nutrients.