Tetrachloroethene respiration in Sulfurospirillum species is regulated by a two-component system as unraveled by comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and regulator binding studies

Sulfurospirillum multivorans is one of the few bacteria, which can anaerobically respire organohalides such as tetrachloroethene. The regulation of this organohalide respiration is in most parts unknown. Sulfurospirillum multivorans was shown to downregulate the expression of organohalide respiration-specific genes slowly when no substrate is present, over the time of approximately 100 generations. To unravel the molecular details of this peculiar regulation and the involved factors, we sequenced the primary transcriptome of the organism. Sulfurospirillum multivorans was grown anaerobically with pyruvate as energy and C-source and either tetrachloroethene or fumarate as electron acceptor; RNA was isolated from four samples each for transcriptional start site analysis – two for a library treated with and two for a library treated without terminator 5′-phosphate-dependent exonuclease.