Function of Periplasmic Hydrogenases in the Sulfate-Reducing Bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough

The sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough possesses four periplasmic hydrogenases to facilitate the oxidation of molecular hydrogen. These include an [Fe], a [NiFeSe] and two [NiFe] hydrogenases encoded by the hyd, hys, hyn1 and hyn2 genes, respectively. In order to understand their cellular functions the expression levels of these hydrogenases, along with the growth rate analysis of mutant strains, was determined during growth on defined media under 3 different conditions. These conditions incuded lactate or hydrogen at either 5% or 50% (vol/vol) used as the sole electron donor for sulfate reduction. Keywords: Electron donor change For each condition 2 unique biological samples were hybridized to 4 arrays that each contained duplicate spots. Genomic DNA was used as universal reference. After total intensity normalization the SAM (significance analysis of microarrays) was used to find differentially expressed genes.