Anaerobic Hydrocarbon Metabolism

The mechanisms and genetics of aerobic hydrocarbon biodegradation have been explored for more than seven decades, but less is known about the comparable activities and processes in anaerobic bacteria, which are difficult to isolate and characterize. Studying the fundamental mechanisms and genetics of anaerobic hydrocarbon metabolism will substantially improve our understanding of the fate and transport of hydrocarbons in the environment and provide insight regarding the novel biochemical reactions governing these processes.

To date, there are two known mechanisms of anaerobic alkane biotransformation: addition to fumarate (Figure 1) and a putative carboxylation pathway (Figure 2). Sulfate-reducing strains Desulfatibacillum alkenivorans AK-01 and Desulfococcus oleovorans Hxd3 serve as model organisms for these two mechanisms, respectively.

Research in my lab aims to further elucidate these pathways in strains AK-01 and Hxd3 as well as discover new pathways in other organisms and systems. Several projects are underway to elucidate the activation mechanisms in enrichment cultures utilizing short and medium-chain alkanes, PAHs and paraffins. These projects are in collaboration with other researchers in the Dept. of Botany/Microbiology, the University of Calgary, and University of Oldenberg.

 

Figure 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2.  Proposed pathway of anaerobic hexadecane metabolism in Hxd3 and a nitrate-reducing consortium.  The pathway is shown for the consortium incubated with H34-hexadecane and NaH13CO3.  (*) designates the 13C-labeled carbon derived from NaH13CO3.  Brackets designate metabolites that were not observed (Callaghan et al., 2009).