Complete genome sequence of "Enterobacter lignolyticus" SCF1

Abstract

In an effort to discover anaerobic bacteria capable of lignin degradation, we isolated "Enterobacter lignolyticus" SCF1 on minimal media with alkali lignin as the sole source of carbon. This organism was isolated anaerobically from tropical forest soils collected from the Short Cloud Forest site in the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, USA, part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Station. At this site, the soils experience strong fluctuations in redox potential and are net methane producers. Because of its ability to grow on lignin anaerobically, we sequenced the genome. The genome of "E. lignolyticus" SCF1 is 4.81 Mbp with no detected plasmids, and includes a relatively small arsenal of lignocellulolytic carbohydrate active enzymes. Lignin degradation was observed in culture, and the genome revealed two putative laccases, a putative peroxidase, and a complete 4-hydroxyphenylacetate degradation pathway encoded in a single gene cluster.

Keywords: Anaerobic lignin degradation; facultative anaerobe; tropical forest soil isolate.

Figure 1

Phylogenetic tree highlighting the position of “Enterobacter lignolyticus” SCF1 relative to other type and non-type strains within the Enterobacteriaceae. Strains shown are those within the Enterobacteriaceae having corresponding NCBI genome project ids listed within [27]. The tree is based on a concatenated MUSCLE alignment [25] of 69 near-universal single-copy COGs (COGs 12, 13, 16, 18, 30, 41, 46, 48, 49, 52, 60, 72, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 124, 126, 127, 130, 143, 149, 150, 162, 164, 172, 184, 185, 186, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 215, 237, 244, 256, 284, 441, 442, 452, 461, 504, 519, 522, 525, 528, 532, 533, 540, 541, 552). The tree was constructed using FastTree-2 [26] using the JTT model of amino acid evolution [28]. FastTree-2 infers approximate maximum-likelihood phylogenetic placements and provides local support values based on the Shimodaira-Hasegawa test [29]. Solid circles represent local support values over 90% and open circles over 80%. Erwinia tasmaniensis was used as an outgroup.

Figure 2

Graphical circular map of the genome. From outside to the center: Genes on forward strand (color by COG categories), Genes on reverse strand (color by COG categories), RNA genes (tRNAs green, rRNAs red, other RNAs black), GC content, GC skew.

Figure 3

The entire 4-hydroxyphenylacetate degradation pathway is encoded in a single gene cluster HpaRGEDFHIXABC, including a divergently expressed regulator (HpaR), and a 4-hydroxyphenylacetate permease (HpaX).

Figure 4

The 4-hydroxyphenylacetate degradation pathway via homoprotocatechuate (3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate).

Figure 5

Anaerobic lignin degradation by “E. lignolyticus” SCF1 after 48 hours in culture, grown with xylose minimal media.