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Effect of Substrate and Electron Acceptor Availability on Nitrite Oxidizing Bacteria

Undergraduate #74
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Environmental Engineering

Coty Weathersby - University of Wisconsin-Madison


Nitrification has traditionally been viewed as a two-step process where ammonium is oxidized to nitrite via ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB), and nitrite is oxidized to nitrate via nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). There has always been a heavy focus on AOB as they have been considered the rate-limiting step in nitrification. NOB are of biotechnological interest because they are metabolically versatile and not limited to oxidizing nitrite exclusively. Aerobic conditions give the traditional case where the electron donor is nitrite and the electron acceptor is oxygen. In anoxic environments, NOB will utilize alternate electron donors (formate, hydrogen gas) to reduce nitrate. This research looks to build a genome-scale model (GEM) of Nitrospira moscoviensis by defining and determining the metabolic reactions that occur within the organism. The stoichiometric ratios of these reactions are transformed into a matrix to build the mathematical representation of the GEM. The GEM will be used to examine the extent to which NOB benefit from alternative metabolisms and simulate how NOB respond to changes in substrates (formate, hydrogen gas, nitrite) and electron acceptor (oxygen gas, nitrate) availability. Metabolic flux analysis based on experimental metabolomics measurements will also be used to validate the GEM.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF (CBET-1435661 and MCB-1518130)

Faculty Advisor: Christopher Lawson, clawson2@wisc.edu

Role: Model simulations; Metabolite extractions; Bioreactor operation

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. DUE-1930047. Any opinions, findings, interpretations, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of its authors and do not represent the views of the AAAS Board of Directors, the Council of AAAS, AAAS’ membership or the National Science Foundation.

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