Towards the Response Threshold for p -Hydroxyacetophenone in the Denitrifying Bacterium “Aromatoleum aromaticum” EbN1

Abstract

Aromatic compounds are widespread microbial growth substrates with natural as well as anthropogenic sources, albeit with their in situ concentrations and their bioavailabilities varying over several orders of magnitude. Even though degradation pathways and underlying regulatory systems have long been studied with aerobic and, to a lesser extent, with anaerobic bacteria, comparatively little is known about the effector concentration-dependent responsiveness. A. aromaticum EbN1 is a model organism for the anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds with the architecture of the catabolic network and its substrate-specific regulation having been intensively studied by means of differential proteogenomics. The present study aims at unraveling the minimal concentration of an aromatic growth substrate ( p -hydroxyacetophenone here) required to initiate gene expression for its degradation pathway and to learn in principle about the lower limit of catabolic responsiveness of an anaerobic degradation specialist.