Taxonomical and physiological comparisons of the three species of the genus Amphibacillus

The Journal of General and Applied Microbiology

Shinji Kawasaki³  Youichi Niimura³  Yukimichi Koizumi²  Shuhei Yanahashi³  Junichi Nakagawa¹  Takumi Sato³  Toshiaki Arai³  Junichi Sato³  Morio Ishikawa² 

[1] Department of Food Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Agriculture;Department of Fermentation Science, Faculty of Applied Bio-Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture;Department of Bioscience, Tokyo University of Agriculture

关键词: Amphibacillus;    NADH oxidase;   

DOI  :  10.2323/jgam.55.155

学科分类：微生物学和免疫学

来源: Applied Microbiology, Molecular and Cellulrar Biosciences Research Foundation

【 摘 要 】

Amphibacillus is a genus for Gram-positive, spore-forming, rod-shaped, facultatively anaerobic bacteria with low-G+C content of DNA, established by Niimura et al. in 1990. Amphibacillus xylanus, the type species of the genus, grows well under both strictly anaerobic and aerobic conditions in spite of lacking any isoprenoid quinones, cytochromes, and catalase. Amphibacillus fermentum and Amphibacillus tropicus were later proposed by Zhilina et al. in 2001 for the isolates from a soda lake. In this paper, we revealed the latter two species also lacked isoprenoid quinones, cytochrome and catalase, and that they grew well under strictly anaerobic and aerobic conditions. The consistent growth of A. xylanus under both conditions is due to the presence of anaerobic and aerobic pathways for glucose metabolism in the organism. Although A. fermentum and A. tropicus are supposed to have a side enzymatic pyruvate pathway to produce lactate under both conditions, the two species have two major pyruvate metabolic pathways as observed in A. xylanus. Analysis data indicated that NADH formed both by the aerobic pyruvate pathway and by the glycolytic pathway was re-oxidized by the NADH oxidase in A. fermentum and A. tropicus as well as A. xylanus, and furthermore that the NADH oxidase-Prx (AhpC) system, i.e., NADH oxidase scavenging hydrogen peroxide with Prx, also functions in A. tropicus as observed with A. xylanus. Not only the taxonomical character of the genus Amphibacillus but also the growth characterization based on the two metabolic pathways and unique oxygen metabolism are distinctive in those traits from other facultative anaerobes.

【 授权许可】

Unknown