Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans

Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans is a bacterium that sustains its life cycle at extremely low pH values, and it is one of the very few organisms that gain energy from oxidating ferrous iron (Fe +II). It can make copper from ores water-soluble, and it can sequester both carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere.[1]

Not only is A. ferrooxidans the best-studied of the acidophilic bacteria. During mining activities, the bacterium plays a crucial role in producing harmful acidic and metal-rich drainage water through the dissolution of sulfide minerals, but it also recovers precious dissolved metals.[2]

The gram-negative bacterium grows best at 30 °C at pH 2 and Fe 2+ concentrations of 10-1 M, but growth still occurs at pH values of less than 1.[1]

Genetics

The ATCC 23270 type strain has one circular chromosome of 2.9 million base pairs and a G+C content of 59%. Genome sequencing has shown 2070 genes that code for a protein with a known function, while 1147 hypothetical proteins have been found. The bacterium contains a gene that makes it toluene-resistant. Genes for chemotaxis and locomotion (flagella) have not been observed.[1]

See also

References
  1. Jorge Valdés; Inti Pedroso; Raquel Quatrini; Robert Dodson; Herve Tettelin; Robert Blake; Jonathan Eisen; David Holmes (2008). "Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans metabolism: from genome sequence to industrial applications". BMC Genomics. 9: 597. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-9-597. PMC 2621215. PMID 19077236.
  2. Quatrini, Raquel; Johnson, D. Barrie (2019). "Microbe of the month: Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans". Trends in Microbiology. 27 (3): 282–283. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2018.11.009. PMID 30563727. S2CID 56478481.


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