Psychrotrophic strain of Janthinobacterium lividum from a cold Alaskan soil produces prodigiosin.

We have explored the microbial community in a nonpermafrost, cold Alaskan soil using both culture-based and culture-independent approaches. In the present study, we cultured >1000 bacterial isolates from this soil and characterized the collection of isolates phylogenetically and functionally. A screen for antibiosis identified an atypical, red-pigmented strain of Janthinobacterium lividum (strain BR01) that produced prodigiosin when grown at cool temperatures as well as strains (e.g., strain BP01) that are more typical of J. lividium, which produce a purple pigment, violacein. Both purple- and red-pigmented strains exhibited high levels of resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. The prodigiosin pathway cloned from J. lividium BR01 was expressed in the heterologous host, Escherichia coli, and the responsible gene cluster differs from that of a well-studied prodigiosin producer, Serratia sp. J. lividum BR01 is the first example of a prodigiosin-producer among the beta-Proteobacteria. The results show that characterization of cultured organisms from previously unexplored environments can expand the current portrait of the microbial world.

[1]  R. Harris,et al.  Skin microbes on frogs prevent morbidity and mortality caused by a lethal skin fungus , 2009, The ISME Journal.

[2]  Heather K. Allen,et al.  Functional metagenomics reveals diverse β-lactamases in a remote Alaskan soil , 2009, The ISME Journal.

[3]  K. Keiler.  Biology of trans-translation. , 2008, Annual review of microbiology.

[4]  K. Finster,et al.  Viability, diversity and composition of the bacterial community in a high Arctic permafrost soil from Spitsbergen, Northern Norway. , 2007, Environmental microbiology.

[5]  Yang Zhu,et al.  Production of polyvinyl alcohol‐degrading enzyme with Janthinobacterium sp. and its application in cotton fabric desizing , 2007, Biotechnology journal.

[6]  H. Sakuraba,et al.  Gene Cloning and Characterization of the Very Large NAD-Dependent l-Glutamate Dehydrogenase from the Psychrophile Janthinobacterium lividum, Isolated from Cold Soil , 2007, Journal of bacteriology.

[7]  V. M. Zubkov,et al.  Molecular analysis of bacterial diversity in kerosene-based drilling fluid from the deep ice borehole at Vostok, East Antarctica. , 2007, FEMS microbiology ecology.

[8]  Finian J. Leeper,et al.  The biosynthesis and regulation of bacterial prodiginines , 2006, Nature Reviews Microbiology.

[9]  C. Hänni,et al.  Presence of Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus DNA in accretion ice in the subglacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica, assessed using rrs, cbb and hox. , 2006, Environmental microbiology.

[10]  Haeyoung Jeong,et al.  Analysis of a Prodigiosin Biosynthetic Gene Cluster from the Marine Bacterium Hahella chejuensis KCTC 2396 , 2006 .

[11]  Carmen Méndez,et al.  Reevaluation of the Violacein Biosynthetic Pathway and its Relationship to Indolocarbazole Biosynthesis , 2006, Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology.

[12]  Jo Handelsman,et al.  Toward a Census of Bacteria in Soil , 2006, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[13]  P. Janssen.  Identifying the Dominant Soil Bacterial Taxa in Libraries of 16S rRNA and 16S rRNA Genes , 2006, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

[14]  Heather K. Allen,et al.  Intracellular Screen To Identify Metagenomic Clones That Induce or Inhibit a Quorum-Sensing Biosensor , 2005, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

[15]  G. Salmond,et al.  Biosynthesis of the red antibiotic, prodigiosin, in Serratia: identification of a novel 2‐methyl‐3‐n‐amyl‐pyrrole (MAP) assembly pathway, definition of the terminal condensing enzyme, and implications for undecylprodigiosin biosynthesis in Streptomyces , 2005, Molecular microbiology.

[16]  G. Salmond,et al.  The Serratia gene cluster encoding biosynthesis of the red antibiotic, prodigiosin, shows species- and strain-dependent genome context variation. , 2004, Microbiology.

[17]  J. Overmann,et al.  Ecological Significance of Microdiversity: Identical 16S rRNA Gene Sequences Can Be Found in Bacteria with Highly Divergent Genomes and Ecophysiologies , 2004, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

[18]  S. Kjelleberg,et al.  Impact of Violacein-Producing Bacteria on Survival and Feeding of Bacterivorous Nanoflagellates , 2004, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

[19]  Christopher W. Schadt,et al.  Seasonal Dynamics of Previously Unknown Fungal Lineages in Tundra Soils , 2003, Science.

[20]  C. Barardi,et al.  Cytotoxicity and potential antiviral evaluation of violacein produced by Chromobacterium violaceum. , 2003, Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

[21]  P. Hugenholtz,et al.  Cultivation of globally distributed soil bacteria from phylogenetic lineages previously only detected in cultivation-independent surveys. , 2002, Environmental microbiology.

[22]  P. Janssen,et al.  Improved Culturability of Soil Bacteria and Isolation in Pure Culture of Novel Members of the Divisions Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia , 2002, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

[23]  E. Mosley‐Thompson,et al.  Isolation of bacteria and 16S rDNAs from Lake Vostok accretion ice. , 2001, Environmental microbiology.

[24]  J. Handelsman,et al.  Cloning and heterologous expression of a natural product biosynthetic gene cluster from eDNA. , 2001, Organic letters.

[25]  M. Thaller,et al.  Metallo-β-Lactamase Producers in Environmental Microbiota: New Molecular Class B Enzyme inJanthinobacterium lividum , 2001, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

[26]  J. Sambrook,et al.  Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual , 2001 .

[27]  C. McKay,et al.  Geomicrobiology of subglacial ice above Lake Vostok, Antarctica. , 1999, Science.

[28]  W. Whitman,et al.  Prokaryotes: the unseen majority. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[29]  J. Tiedje,et al.  Phylogenetic diversity of a bacterial community determined from Siberian tundra soil DNA. , 1997, Microbiology.

[30]  Thomas L. Madden,et al.  Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. , 1997, Nucleic acids research.

[31]  D. Gilichinsky,et al.  Characterization of Viable Bacteria from Siberian Permafrost by 16S rDNA Sequencing , 1997, Microbial Ecology.

[32]  A. Gleave,et al.  Cloning and sequencing of a gene encoding the 69-kDa extracellular chitinase of Janthinobacterium lividum. , 1995, FEMS microbiology letters.

[33]  A. B. Hale,et al.  Genetic Variation within a Lotic Population of Janthinobacterium lividum , 1993, Applied and environmental microbiology.

[34]  Leslie A. Viereck,et al.  Climate of the Tanana River floodplain near Fairbanks, Alaska , 1993 .

[35]  E. Myers,et al.  Basic local alignment search tool. , 1990, Journal of molecular biology.

[36]  D A Stahl,et al.  Fluorescent-oligonucleotide probing of whole cells for determinative, phylogenetic, and environmental studies in microbiology , 1990, Journal of bacteriology.

[37]  D. Hanahan.  Studies on transformation of Escherichia coli with plasmids. , 1983, Journal of molecular biology.

[38]  E. Bruck,et al.  National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. , 1980, Pediatrics.

[39]  M. Gillis,et al.  Intra- and Intergeneric Similarities of Chromobacterium and Janthinobacterium Ribosomal Ribonucleic Acid Cistrons , 1978 .

[40]  R. P. Williams,et al.  Influence of Temperature of Incubation and Type of Growth Medium on Pigmentation in Serratia marcescens , 1971, Journal of bacteriology.

[41]  H. Lichstein,et al.  The Antibiotic Activity of Violacein, Prodigiosin, and Phthiocol , 1946, Journal of bacteriology.

[42]  Clinical,et al.  Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing; Eighteenth Informational Supplement , 2008 .

[43]  M. Thaller,et al.  Metallo-b-Lactamase Producers in Environmental Microbiota: New Molecular Class B Enzyme in Janthinobacterium lividum , 2001 .