Improving confirmed nanometric sulfur bioproduction using engineered Thioalkalivibrio versutus

Moustafa Mohamed Sharshar; Nadia Abdrabou Samak; Sadaf Ambreen; Xuemi Hao; Tingzhen Mu; Mohamed Maarouf; Chen Zheng; Yibo Gao; Zhixia Liu; Yunpu Jia; Xiangyuan Li; Wei Zhong; Sumit Peh; Maohua Yang; Jianmin Xing

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2020.124018

Improving confirmed nanometric sulfur bioproduction using engineered Thioalkalivibrio versutus

Bioresour Technol. 2020 Dec:317:124018. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.124018. Epub 2020 Aug 14.

Authors

Moustafa Mohamed Sharshar¹, Nadia Abdrabou Samak², Sadaf Ambreen³, Xuemi Hao¹, Tingzhen Mu⁴, Mohamed Maarouf⁵, Chen Zheng¹, Yibo Gao¹, Zhixia Liu⁴, Yunpu Jia¹, Xiangyuan Li⁴, Wei Zhong⁶, Sumit Peh¹, Maohua Yang⁴, Jianmin Xing⁷

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China; College of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China.
² Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China; College of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China; Processes Design and Development Department, Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Nasr City, Cairo 11727, Egypt.
³ Key Laboratory of Genomics and Precision Medicine, Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS, Beijing 100101, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China.
⁵ CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, CAS, Beijing 100101, China; Virology Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia 41522, Egypt.
⁶ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Synthetic Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Synthetic Genomics, CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China; College of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: jmxing@ipe.ac.cn.

PMID: 32836035
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.124018

Abstract

Complicated production procedures and superior characteristics of nano-sized sulfur elevate its price to 25-40 fold higher than micrograde kind. Also, natural gas hydrogen sulfide levels are restricted because of its toxic environmental consequences. Thioalkalivibrio versutus is a polyextremophilic industrial autotroph with high natural gas desulfurization capability. Here, nanometric (>50 nm) sulfur bioproduction using T. versutus while desulfurizing natural gas was validated. Also, this production was enhanced by 166.7% via lowering sulfate production by 55.1%. A specially-developed CRISPR system, with 42% editing efficiency, simplified the genome editing workflow scheme for this challenging bacterium. In parallel, sulfur metabolism was uncovered using proteins mining and transcriptome studies for defining sulfate-producing key genes (heterodisulfide reductase-like complex, sulfur dioxygenase, sulfite dehydrogenase and sulfite oxidase). This study provided cost-effective nanometric sulfur production and improved this production using a novel CRISPR strategy, which could be suitable for industrial polyextremophiles, after uncovering sulfur pathways in T. versutus.

Keywords: Cell death-induced CRISPR; Desulfurization; Nanometric sulfur bioproduction; Sulfur pathways; Thioalkalivibrio versutus.

MeSH terms

Ectothiorhodospiraceae*
Oxidation-Reduction
Sulfates
Sulfur

Substances

Sulfates
Sulfur

Supplementary concepts

Thioalkalivibrio versutus