Assessing the Metabolic Diversity of Streptococcus from a Protein Domain Point of View

PLoS One. 2015 Sep 14;10(9):e0137908. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137908. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Understanding the diversity and robustness of the metabolism of bacteria is fundamental for understanding how bacteria evolve and adapt to different environments. In this study, we characterised 121 Streptococcus strains and studied metabolic diversity from a protein domain perspective. Metabolic pathways were described in terms of the promiscuity of domains participating in metabolic pathways that were inferred to be functional. Promiscuity was defined by adapting existing measures based on domain abundance and versatility. The approach proved to be successful in capturing bacterial metabolic flexibility and species diversity, indicating that it can be described in terms of reuse and sharing functional domains in different proteins involved in metabolic activity. Additionally, we showed striking differences among metabolic organisation of the pathogenic serotype 2 Streptococcus suis and other strains.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adaptation, Physiological*
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism*
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Species Specificity
  • Streptococcus suis / genetics
  • Streptococcus suis / metabolism*

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the European Commission-funded FP7 project INFECT (Contract No. 305340). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.