Abstract
Many bacteria have been isolated in the past that are able to live on toxic aromatic compounds as their sole carbon source. These strains are of great biotechnological interest for bioremediation purposes, since aromatic compounds are components of crude oil and are released, e.g., after a forest fire during the combustion of cellulose and lignins. The degradation pathways involved in braking down these compounds are under tight transcriptional control. However, the mechanisms of regulation differ significantly: some degradation routes are regulated by one-component systems (OCS, transcriptional regulators), whereas other pathways are under the control of two-component systems (TCS). This chapter summarizes knowledge available on the TCS-subfamily that is involved in hydrocarbon degradation. The sensor histidine kinases (SHK) of this subfamily differ significantly from a prototypal SHK in its subcellular localization, size, and domain arrangement. We will focus on data available on the TodS/TodT and TmoS/TmoT systems controlling toluene degradation, and the StyS/StyR system regulating a styrene breakdown pathway. Interestingly, the former two systems are controlled by the concerted action of agonists and antagonists, a fact that is of great interest for the development of efficient bioremediation strategies. A phylogenetic sequence analysis indicates that TCSs with a domain arrangement identical to TodS/TodT are predominantly found in strains of the β- and γ-Proteobacteria that sense and degrade aromatic hydrocarbons or that are involved in processes such as the nodulation, where polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, flavonoids) are sensed by the TodS homolog NodV.
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge financial support from FEDER funds and Fondo Social Europeo through grants from the Junta de Andalucía (grants P09-RNM-4509 and CVI-7335) and the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (grants BIO2010-16937 and BIO2013-42297).
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Busch, A., Mesa-Torres, N., Krell, T. (2018). The Family of Two-Component Systems That Regulate Hydrocarbon Degradation Pathways. In: Krell, T. (eds) Cellular Ecophysiology of Microbe: Hydrocarbon and Lipid Interactions. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50542-8_6
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