Response of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough to hydrogen peroxide: Enzymatic and transcriptional analyses

Abstract

We studied the effect of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) stress on the anaerobic sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough. In a lactate/sulfate medium, growth was affected from 0.1 mM H2O2 and totally inhibited at 0.7 mM. Surprisingly, transcript analyses revealed that the PerR regulon exhibited opposite regulation in the presence of 0.1 and 0.3 mM H2O2. The variations in peroxidase- and superoxide dismutase-specific activities in the cell-free extracts of H2O2-stressed cultures were related to changes in the corresponding transcript abundance. Our data suggest that sod, sor, ngr and tpx genes, in addition to the PerR regulon, belong to the H 2O2 stimulon. © 2010 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.