Pyruvate Stimulates the Gowth of Nitrifiers

Nitrifying bacteria can grow on ammonia or nitrite as an energy source and carbon dioxide as a carbon source. Thus, the isolate of nitrifying bacteria have been incubated in the mineral salts medium, which prevented contamination of heterotrophs. Recent genome analysis revealed that nitrifying bacteria had a potential to metabolite simple organic carbons. In fact, the growth of Nitrotoga sp. AM1 isolated nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in our laboratory was promoted in the presence of pyruvate, which is an important intermediate compound in the metabolism. The aim of this study is to identify the differential expressed genes in the AM1 cells incubated in the absence and presence of pyruvate.