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How does this bacteria survive in extreme environments? Discover the super survival skills of Sphingomonas!
Sphingomonas is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, chemoheterotrophic, aerobic bacterium defined in 1990. These bacteria possess important characteristics that allow them to survive in extreme environments, which has attracted widespread attention from the scientific community. Sphingomonas' cell membranes contain sugarcane sphingolipids instead of typical lipopolysaccharides and often form yellow-pigmented colonies, properties that make them resistant to antimicrobial substances.
This unique structure prevents Sphingomonas from carrying endotoxins, which is an important difference from other Gram-negative bacteria.
As of 2001, the genus Sphingomonas contains more than 20 different species, which show considerable diversity in lineage, environment and physiological properties. This has often resulted in the division of Sphingomonas into different genera, including Sphingobium, Novosphingobium, etc., which are collectively known as sphingomonads.
The genome structure of Sphingomonas is inconsistent with other sphingomonads, including unique lipid formation, major 2-OH fatty acids, and unique 16S rRNA gene nucleotide samples. Although some of the data identified are still incomplete, the number of proteins in these bacteria is as high as 3914, the RNA organization is 70, and the genome size is about 3948000 base pairs.
Habitat
Sphingomonads are widely distributed in nature and have been isolated from various terrestrial and aquatic habitats, including plant roots, clinical samples, etc. This is because they are able to survive in low nutrient concentrations and metabolize a variety of carbon sources. Many strains can even survive in polluted environments, using toxic compounds as their nutrients.
Role in disease
Unfortunately, some sphingomonads (particularly Sphingomonas paucimobilis) are also of medical importance, causing a range of mostly nosocomial infections that are non-life-threatening and usually resolve easily with antibiotic treatment.
Specifically, the endogenous strain Sphingomonas melonis ZJ26 is able to proliferate naturally in specific rice varieties and confer enhanced disease resistance against bacterial pathogens that are vertically transmitted through seeds through plant generations.
Application
Utilization of biotechnology
Due to their ability to biodegrade and biosynthesize, sphingomonads are used in a variety of biotechnological applications, ranging from the bioremediation of environmental pollutants to the production of exobiopolymers (such as colloidins) in the food and other industries is widely used.
The short carbohydrate fragment of GSL makes the cell surface of Sphingomonas more hydrophobic relative to LPS, which may explain its sensitivity to hydrophobic antibiotics and its ability to degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. For example, certain strains such as Sphingomonas sp. 2MPII are able to degrade 2-methylanthracene.
Even more strikingly, Daniel Burd, a 16-year-old Canadian teenager, won the National Science Fair in 2008 for discovering that Sphingomonas could degrade more than 40% of the weight of plastic bags in less than three months .
Wine fermentation
Wine production relies on the alcoholic fermentation of grapes, and this process is affected by microorganisms and other environmental factors.
Sphingomonas was found to survive the wine manufacturing process in soil, grape leaves and fermentation surfaces, indicating its close relationship with microbial terroir.
In the UC Davis study, researchers observed increased abundance of Sphingomonas in finished wines from Napa and Sonoma counties, suggesting that Sphingomonas may be important indicators of wine chemistry.
During the fermentation process, its pigments, stress resistance, unique DNA repair system and low nutritional requirements allow Sphingomonas to grow during the wine making process, thereby affecting the quality of the final wine.
By understanding the survival conditions of bacteria in these extreme environments, can we foresee more amazing discoveries and applications in the fields of ecosystem protection and food manufacturing in the future?
