Transcriptional Profiling of Hydrogen Production Metabolism of Rhodobacter capsulatus under Temperature Stress by Microarray Analysis

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Muazzez Gürgan¹  Nilﳾr Afᗺr Erkal¹  Ebru Özgür³  Ufuk Gündüz¹  Inci Eroglu²  Meral Yﳎl¹ 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06800, Turkey; E-Mails:;Department of Chemical Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06800, Turkey; E-Mail:;Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06800, Turkey; E-Mail:

关键词: Rhodobacter capsulatus;    microarray analysis;    gene expression;    heat and cold stress;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms160613781

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Biohydrogen is a clean and renewable form of hydrogen, which can be produced by photosynthetic bacteria in outdoor large-scale photobioreactors using sunlight. In this study, the transcriptional response of Rhodobacter capsulatus to cold (4 °C) and heat (42 °C) stress was studied using microarrays. Bacteria were grown in 30/2 acetate/glutamate medium at 30 °C for 48 h under continuous illumination. Then, cold and heat stresses were applied for two and six hours. Growth and hydrogen production were impaired under both stress conditions. Microarray chips for R. capsulatus were custom designed by Affymetrix (GeneChip^®. TR_RCH2a520699F). The numbers of significantly changed genes were 328 and 293 out of 3685 genes under cold and heat stress, respectively. Our results indicate that temperature stress greatly affects the hydrogen production metabolisms of R. capsulatus. Specifically, the expression of genes that participate in nitrogen metabolism, photosynthesis and the electron transport system were induced by cold stress, while decreased by heat stress. Heat stress also resulted in down regulation of genes related to cell envelope, transporter and binding proteins. Transcriptome analysis and physiological results were consistent with each other. The results presented here may aid clarification of the genetic mechanisms for hydrogen production in purple non-sulfur (PNS) bacteria under temperature stress.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.