(Per)Chlorate-Reducing Bacteria Can Utilize Aerobic and Anaerobic Pathways of Aromatic Degradation with (Per)Chlorate as an Electron Acceptor

The pathways involved in aromatic compound oxidation under perchlorate and chlorate [collectively known as (per)chlorate]-reducing conditions are poorly understood. Previous studies suggest that these are oxygenase-dependent pathways involving O(2) biogenically produced during (per)chlorate respiration. Recently, we described Sedimenticola selenatireducens CUZ and Dechloromarinus chlorophilus NSS, which oxidized phenylacetate and benzoate, two key intermediates in aromatic compound catabolism, coupled to the reduction of perchlorate or chlorate, respectively, and nitrate. While strain CUZ also oxidized benzoate and phenylacetate with oxygen as an electron acceptor, strain NSS oxidized only the latter, even at a very low oxygen concentration (1%, vol/vol). Strains CUZ and NSS contain similar genes for both the anaerobic and aerobic-hybrid pathways of benzoate and phenylacetate degradation; however, the key genes (paaABCD) encoding the epoxidase of the aerobic-hybrid phenylacetate pathway were not found in either genome. By using transcriptomics and proteomics, as well as by monitoring metabolic intermediates, we investigated the utilization of the anaerobic and aerobic-hybrid pathways on different electron acceptors. For strain CUZ, the results indicated utilization of the anaerobic pathways with perchlorate and nitrate as electron acceptors and of the aerobic-hybrid pathways in the presence of oxygen. In contrast, proteomic results suggest that strain NSS may use a combination of the anaerobic and aerobic-hybrid pathways when growing on phenylacetate with chlorate. Though microbial (per)chlorate reduction produces molecular oxygen through the dismutation of chlorite (ClO(2)(−)), this study demonstrates that anaerobic pathways for the degradation of aromatics can still be utilized by these novel organisms.