Viridisin A1 and A2 were previously heterologously expressed, purified, and characterized as ribosomally produced and post-translationally modified lanthipeptides. Such lanthipeptide operons are surprisingly common in Gram-negative bacteria, although their expression seems to be predominantly cryptic under laboratory conditions. However, the bioactivity and biological role of most lanthipeptide operons originating from marine-associated , such as XOM25T, have not been described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article summarises the activities of the Bacterial Viruses Subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses for the period of March 2021-March 2022. We provide an overview of the new taxa proposed in 2021, approved by the Executive Committee, and ratified by vote in 2022. Significant changes to the taxonomy of bacterial viruses were introduced: the paraphyletic morphological families Podoviridae, Siphoviridae, and Myoviridae as well as the order Caudovirales were abolished, and a binomial system of nomenclature for species was established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel class I lanthipeptide produced by the marine bacterium XOM25 was identified using genome mining. The putative lanthipeptides were heterologously coexpressed in as GFP-prepeptide fusions along with the operon-encoded class I lanthipeptide modification machinery VdsCB. The core peptides, VdsA1 and VdsA2, were liberated from GFP using the NisP protease, purified, and analyzed by collision-induced tandem mass spectrometry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis frequently associated with complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) and is the main cause of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). Treatment of such infections is complicated and challenging due to the biofilm forming abilities of . If neglected or mistreated, infections may lead to life-threating conditions such as cystitis, pyelonephritis, kidney failure, and bacteremia that may progress to urosepsis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The genus Planococcus is comprised of halophilic bacteria generally reported for the production of carotenoid pigments and biosurfactants. In previous work, we showed that the culturing of the orange-pigmented Planococcus sp. CP5-4 isolate increased the evaporation rate of industrial wastewater brine effluent, which we attributed to the orange pigment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiatoms are a successful group of microalgae at the base of the marine food web. For hundreds of millions of years, they have shared common habitats with bacteria, which favored the onset of interactions at different levels, potentially driving the synthesis of biologically active molecules. To unveil their presence, we sequenced the genomes of bacteria associated with the centric diatom from the Gulf of Naples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a continued need for improved enzymes for industry. β-xylosidases are enzymes employed in a variety of industries and although many wild-type and engineered variants have been described, enzymes that are highly tolerant of the products produced by catalysis are not readily available and the fundamental mechanisms of tolerance are not well understood.
Results: Screening of a metagenomic library constructed of mDNA isolated from horse manure compost for β-xylosidase activity identified 26 positive hits.
Oceanicaulis alexandrii strain NP7 is a marine bacterium which belongs to the Hyphomonadaceae family and was isolated from sediments highly contaminated with metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons released for decades by industrial activities in the Gulf of Naples (Mediterranean Sea). Here, we report the partial genome sequence and annotation of O. alexandrii strain NP7 that contains a chromosome of 2,954,327 bp and encodes for 2914 predicted coding sequences (CDSs) and 44 RNA-encoding genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this article, we - the Bacterial Viruses Subcommittee and the Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) - summarise the results of our activities for the period March 2020 - March 2021. We report the division of the former Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee in two separate Subcommittees, welcome new members, a new Subcommittee Chair and Vice Chair, and give an overview of the new taxa that were proposed in 2020, approved by the Executive Committee and ratified by vote in 2021. In particular, a new realm, three orders, 15 families, 31 subfamilies, 734 genera and 1845 species were newly created or redefined (moved/promoted).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExtremophilic microorganisms represent a unique source of novel natural products. Among them, cold adapted bacteria and particularly alpine microorganisms are still underexplored. Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of a novel Gram-positive, aerobic rod-shaped alpine bacterium (KRL4), isolated from sediments from the Karuola glacier in Tibet, China.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere, we report the draft genome sequence of a metagenome-assembled genome (MAG) of a new bacterium, NP8, of the family. This bacterium was isolated from polluted sediment collected from an abandoned industrial site located in the Gulf of Naples (Mediterranean Sea) as part of a microbial consortium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInvestigations on the ability of bacteria to enhance removal of hydrocarbons and reduce heavy metal toxicity in sediments are necessary to design more effective bioremediation strategies. In this study, five bacterial strains, sp. SZN1, sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article is a summary of the activities of the ICTV's Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee for the years 2018 and 2019. Highlights include the creation of a new order, 10 families, 22 subfamilies, 424 genera and 964 species. Some of our concerns about the ICTV's ability to adjust to and incorporate new DNA- and protein-based taxonomic tools are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe published online version contains mistake in the author list.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The importance of the accessory enzymes such as α-L-arabinofuranosidases (AFases) in synergistic interactions within cellulolytic mixtures has introduced a paradigm shift in the search for hydrolytic enzymes. The aim of this study was to characterize novel AFase genes encoding enzymes with differing temperature optima and thermostabilities for use in hydrolytic cocktails.
Results: Three fosmids, pFos-H4, E3 and D3 were selected from the cloned metagenome of high temperature compost, expressed in Escherichia coli and subsequently purified to homogeneity from cell lysate.
Biosurfactants are amphiphilic molecules that interact with the surfaces of liquids leading to many useful applications. Most biosurfactants have been identified from cultured microbial sources, leaving a largely untapped resource of uncultured bacteria with potentially novel biosurfactant structures. To access the uncultured bacteria, a metagenomic library was constructed in Escherichia coli from environmental DNA within an E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe disposal of reject brine, a highly concentrated waste by-product generated by various industrial processes, represents a major economic and environmental challenge. The common practice in dealing with the large amounts of brine generated is to dispose of it in a pond and allow it to evaporate. The rate of evaporation is therefore a key factor in the effectiveness of the management of these ponds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe vaginal mucosa is dominated by Gram positive, rod shaped lactobacilli which serve as a natural barrier against infection. In both healthy- and bacterial vaginosis (BV)-infected women Lactobacillus crispatus and Lactobacillus jensenii have been found to be the predominant Lactobacillus species. Many studies have been conducted to assess factors influencing lactobacilli dominance in the vaginal microbiome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe authors wish to make the following changes to their paper [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current view of virus diversity in terrestrial hot springs is limited to a few sampling sites. To expand our current understanding of hot spring viral community diversity, this study aimed to investigate the first African hot spring (Brandvlei hot spring; 60 °C, pH 5.7) by means of electron microscopy and sequencing of the virus fraction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to the rise in multi-drug resistant pathogens and other diseases, there is renewed interest in marine sponge endosymbionts as a rich source of natural products (NPs). The South African marine environment is rich in marine biota that remains largely unexplored and may represent an important source for the discovery of novel NPs. We first investigated the bacterial diversity associated with five South African marine sponges, whose microbial populations had not previously been investigated, and select the two sponges (Isodictya compressa and Higginsia bidentifera) with highest species richness to culture bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSequencing, assembly, and annotation of environmental virome samples is challenging. Methodological biases and differences in species abundance result in fragmentary read coverage; sequence reconstruction is further complicated by the mosaic nature of viral genomes. In this paper, we focus on biocomputational aspects of virome analysis, emphasizing latent pitfalls in sequence annotation.
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