c Degradation of terephthalate (TA) through microbial syntrophy under moderately thermophilic (46 to 50°C) methanogenic conditions was characterized by using a metagenomic approach (A. Lykidis et al., ISME J. 5:122-130, 2011). To further study the activities of key microorganisms responsible for the TA degradation, community analysis and shotgun proteomics were used. The results of hierarchical oligonucleotide primer extension analysis of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA genes indicated that Pelotomaculum, Methanosaeta, and Methanolinea were predominant in the TA-degrading biofilms. Metaproteomic analysis identified a total of 482 proteins and revealed a distinctive distribution pattern of microbial functions expressed in situ. The results confirmed that TA was degraded by Pelotomaculum spp. via the proposed decarboxylation and benzoyl-coenzyme A-dependent pathway. The intermediate by-products, including acetate, H 2 /CO 2 , and butyrate, were produced to support the growth of methanogens, as well as other microbial populations that could further degrade butyrate. Proteins related to energy production and conservation, and signal transduction mechanisms (that is, chemotaxis, PAS/GGDEF regulators, and stress proteins) were highly expressed, and these mechanisms were important for growth in energy-limited syntrophic ecosystems.T erephthalate (TA) is produced in large quantities in plastic, textile, and petroleum-related industries, and wastewater generated by the TA manufacturing process is often treated with anaerobic methanogenic processes (1). In these processes, TA is converted to CH 4 and CO 2 through the microbial syntrophy established among the enriched microbial populations. It is hypothesized that the hydrogen-producing syntrophic bacteria degrade TA to acetate and H 2 /CO 2 , which are immediately used by the methanogenic archaea adjacent to final gaseous products (2, 3). To validate the syntrophic interaction, a full-cycle 16S rRNA approach was used to successfully identify the identities of the syntrophic bacteria and methanogenic archaea inside the granules and biofilms of different laboratory-scale TA-degrading methanogenic reactors (3, 4). A recent study further used a metagenomic approach to reveal the diversity and physiological traits of the syntrophs and methanogens involved in the TA degradation under moderately thermophilic conditions (46 to 50°C) (5). All of these studies have provided strong evidence to elucidate the degradation of TA based on the microbial populations and the metabolic pathways involved.Furthermore, to directly observe the global expression of microbial functions within the TA-degrading consortium, community-level proteomics can be used (6). To do so, total proteins recovered from an environmental sample are first separated and enzymatically fragmented. The resulting peptide mixture is analyzed using advanced liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) technology, and information related to the key proteins is identified using in silico analysis of the protein sequence database. ...

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The water-soluble Roussin's red ester [(NO)(2)Fe(mu-SCH(2)CH(2)P(O)(CH(2)OH)(2))(2)Fe(NO)(2)] (1), a potential photochemical prodrug of an NO precursor, was synthesized from the reaction of HSCH(2)CH(2)P(O)(CH(2)OH)(2) (F) and [Fe(CO)(2)(NO)(2)]. The IR v(NO) stretching frequencies of complex 1 appear at 1759 (s), 1784 (s) and 1816 (w) cm(-1) in buffer (pH = 7.4). NO was released with a stoichiometry ratio Delta[NO]/Delta[1] = 3.6 +/- 0.2 when complex 1 was exposed to UV in deaerated aqueous phosphate buffer solution. Here light acts as an On/Off switch for NO release. Incubation of pBR322 supercoiled DNA with complex 1, followed by irradiation, produced DNA strand breakage. In contrast to the addition of carboxy-PTIO (NO radical scavenger), DNA strand breakage was not inhibited when the scavengers of hydroxyl radical and singlet oxygen were added. Complex 1 irradiated under a N(2) atmosphere exhibited the same cleavage efficiency as complex 1 irradiated under air. The results show that DNA strand cleavage efficiency depends on the concentration of complex 1, the pH value of the buffer, and the duration of the photolysis of complex 1. The conversion rate from supercoiled (SC form) to nicked circular (NC form) of complex 1 was 2.96 x 10(-2) s(-1). The results of a T4 ligase enzymatic assay reveals the nonhydrolytic DNA breakage mechanism. The NO-release ability of complexes 1, 2, and 3 follows the order 1 > 2 > 3. Upon UV-irradiation, complex 1 exhibits cytotoxicity against B16-F10 mouse melanoma cells.

Protein recovery is crucial for shotgun metaproteomics to study the in situ functionality of microbial populations from complex biofilms but still poorly addressed by far. To fill this knowledge gap, we systematically evaluated the sample preparation with extraction buffers comprising four detergents for the metaproteomics analysis of a terephthalate-degrading methanogenic biofilm using an on-line two-dimensional liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (2D-LC-MS/MS) system. Totally, 1018 non-repeated proteins were identified with the four treatments. On the whole, each treatment could recover the biofilm proteins with specific distributions of molecular weight, hydrophobicity, and isoelectric point. The extraction buffers containing zwitterionic and anionic detergents were found to harvest the proteins with better efficiency and quality, allowing identification up to 76.2% of total identified proteins with the LC-MS/MS analysis. According to the annotation with a relevant metagenomic database, we further observed different taxonomic profiles of bacterial and archaeal members and discriminable patterns of the functional expression among the extraction buffers used. Overall, the finding of the present study provides first insight to the effect of the detergents on the characteristics of extractable proteins from biofilm and the developed protocol combined with nano 2D-LC/MS/MS analysis can improve the metaproteomics studies on microbial functionality of biofilms in the wastewater treatment systems.

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