Trends in Biotechnology
ReviewThe biotechnological potential of piezophiles
Section snippets
Characteristics of piezophilic microorganisms
ZoBell and Johnson first coined the term ‘barophile’ (recently termed ‘piezophile’), and ZoBell and Morita obtained the first evidence of piezophilic growth in mixed microbial cultures recovered from the deep-sea. The first isolate of pressure-adapted bacteria was reported by Yayanos et al. in 1979 18, and subsequently, many psychrophilic piezophiles with various optimal growth pressures have been isolated and characterized physiologically and genetically. The deep-sea hydrothermal vents are
Cultivation of piezophilic microorganisms
In contrast to non-piezophiles, it is absolutely necessary to set up specialized apparatus for the high-pressure cultivation of piezophiles. The simplest and most convenient system for high-pressure cultivation is a pressure syringe, generally made of stainless steel or titanium, which can be used at 100–200 MPa. In this case, bacteria in a suitable culture medium are put into a sterilized plastic bag or tube, and hydrostatic pressure is applied using a hand pump. For aerobic microorganisms,
Principles of high pressure effects in biological systems
We are less familiar with the effects of pressure changes but we are very familiar with the effects of hot and cold temperatures. The application of pressure yields a fundamental physical parameter in any reaction, that is, volume change. Two relationships , describe the effect of hydrostatic pressure on an equilibrium A ↔ B and a reaction A → B, respectively:
In , , K is the equilibrium constant, k the rate constant, p the pressure (atm), T the absolute
Potential applications of piezophiles
Pressure effects on protein structure and stabilityProtein–protein interactions are important in various biological systems including multimeric enzymes, ribosomes, cytoskeleton proteins and proteins that act in signal transduction pathways; such interactions are thought to be sensitive to increasing pressure. Hydrostatic pressure causes the dissociation of numerous multimeric proteins because the processes are typically accompanied by negative volume changes [55], [56], [57], [58]. The
Conclusion
Considering the large amount of background information available on high-pressure effects on physicochemical equilibria, biochemical/biophysical reactions and protein structure, research on piezophiles is expected to progress in two directions: (1) the exploration of high-pressure adaptation mechanisms of deep-sea organisms; and (2) the biotechnological applications of deep-sea organisms, as in the case of other extremophiles, such as thermophiles, psychrophiles, acidophiles and alkaliphiles.
Acknowledgements
We thank Professors D.H. Bartlett, K. Heremans, D.S. Clark, S. Makimoto, and Drs C. Kato, Y. Nogi, K. Tsujii and A. Inoue for valuable comments in the preparation of this manuscript.
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