A commensal symbiotic interrelationship for the growth of Symbiobacterium toebii with its partner bacterium, Geobacillus toebii

BACKGROUND: Symbiobacterium toebii is a commensal symbiotic thermophile that absolutely requires its partner bacterium Geobacillus toebii for growth. Despite development of an independent cultivation method using cell-free extracts, the growth of Symbiobacterium remains unknown due to our poor understanding of the symbiotic relationship with its partner bacterium. Here, we investigated the interrelationship between these two bacteria for growth of S. toebii using different cell-free extracts of G. toebii. RESULTS: Symbiobacterium toebii growth-supporting factors were constitutively produced through almost all growth phases and under different oxygen tensions in G. toebii, indicating that the factor may be essential components for growth of G. toebii as well as S. toebii. The growing conditions of G. toebii under different oxygen tension dramatically affected to the initial growth of S. toebii and the retarded lag phase was completely shortened by reducing agent, L-cysteine indicating an evidence of commensal interaction of microaerobic and anaerobic bacterium S. toebii with a facultative aerobic bacterium G. toebii. In addition, the growth curve of S. toebii showed a dependency on the protein concentration of cell-free extracts of G. toebii, demonstrating that the G. toebii-derived factors have nutrient-like characters but not quorum-sensing characters. CONCLUSIONS: Not only the consistent existence of the factor in G. toebii during all growth stages and under different oxygen tensions but also the concentration dependency of the factor for proliferation and optimal growth of S. toebii, suggests that an important biosynthetic machinery lacks in S. toebii during evolution. The commensal symbiotic bacterium, S. toebii uptakes certain ubiquitous and essential compound for its growth from environment or neighboring bacteria that shares the equivalent compounds. Moreover, G. toebii grown under aerobic condition shortened the lag phase of S. toebii under anaerobic and microaerobic conditions, suggests a possible commensal interaction that G. toebii scavengers ROS/RNS species and helps the initial growth of S. toebii.