Fitness factors impacting survival of a subsurface bacterium in contaminated groundwater.
Michael P ThorgersenJennifer L GoffValentine V TrotterFarris L PooleAdam P ArkinAdam M DeutschbauerMichael W W AdamsPublished in: The ISME journal (2024)
Many factors contribute to the ability of a microbial species to persist when encountering complexly contaminated environments including time of exposure, the nature and concentration of contaminants, availability of nutritional resources, and possession of a combination of appropriate molecular mechanisms needed for survival. Herein we sought to identify genes that are most important for survival of Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae in contaminated groundwater environments containing high concentrations of nitrate and metals using the metal-tolerant Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) isolate, Pantoea sp. MT58 (MT58). Survival fitness experiments in which a randomly barcoded transposon insertion (RB-TnSeq) library of MT58 was exposed directly to contaminated ORR groundwater samples from across a nitrate and mixed metal contamination plume were used to identify genes important for survival with increasing exposure times and concentrations of contaminants, and availability of a carbon source. Genes involved in controlling and using carbon, encoding transcriptional regulators, and related to Gram-negative outer membrane processes were among those found to be important for survival in contaminated ORR groundwater. A comparative genomics analysis of 75 Pantoea genus strains allowed us to further separate the survival determinants into core and non-core genes in the Pantoea pangenome, revealing insights into the survival of subsurface microorganisms during contaminant plume intrusion.
Keyphrases
- drinking water
- heavy metals
- gram negative
- health risk
- multidrug resistant
- free survival
- health risk assessment
- human health
- risk assessment
- physical activity
- transcription factor
- body composition
- pseudomonas aeruginosa
- oxidative stress
- microbial community
- cystic fibrosis
- klebsiella pneumoniae
- bioinformatics analysis