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Draft Genome Sequence of a Multi-Metal Resistant Bacterium Pseudomonas putida ATH-43 Isolated from Greenwich Island, Antarctica

Fernanda Rodríguez-Rojas,Paz Tapia,E. Castro-Nallar,A. Undabarrena,P. Muñoz-Díaz,Mauricio Arenas-Salinas,W. Díaz-Vásquez,J. Valdés,C. Vásquez

Published 2016 in Frontiers in Microbiology

ABSTRACT

At low concentrations, heavy metals and metalloids are highly toxic for most microorganisms (Lemire et al., 2013). Over evolution, bacteria have developed several molecular mechanisms in order to cope with heavy metal/metalloid toxicity (Nies, 2000; Lemire et al., 2013). Pseudomonas putida belongs to a group of versatile microorganisms capable to thrive in diverse hostile environments, including multi-metal polluted cold sites (Canovas et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2012; Moreno and Rojo, 2013). Members of P. putida are largely known for their ability to colonize different kinds of environments and to degrade a vast diversity of toxic organic compounds (Wu et al., 2011). In this context, P. putida ATH-43 was isolated from soil sediments at the “Prat” Chilean military base located in Greenwich Island, Antarctica, and was recognized as a mercury/tellurite resistant bacterium (Rodriguez-Rojas et al., 2015). Interestingly, this strain shows tellurite resistance only when grown in the presence of mercury, suggesting a cross-resistance mechanism. Further experimental evidence revealed that P. putida ATH-43 is highly resistant to other toxicants such as Cd2+, Cu2+, CrO42−, and SeO32−, and several antibiotics including streptomycin, cefotaxime, kanamycin, and chloramphenicol (Rodriguez-Rojas et al., 2015). On the other hand, global distillation and grasshopper effect are of major worldwide concern since they apparently provide an explanation for the rapid occurrence of heavy metal/metalloids contamination in pristine polar environments (Ebinghaus et al., 2002; Macdonald et al., 2005). In this context, the genome sequence of P. putida ATH-43 represents an important information source of genetic resistance determinants to multiple stressors currently affecting the Antarctic ecosystem. In this report we present the first draft genome sequence of a P. putida strain isolated from the Antarctic continent. The shotgun sequencing strategy, assembly, and subsequent annotation showed that the ATH-43 strain possesses a wide spectrum of genetic determinants involved in heavy metal and antibiotic resistance, apparently to cope with extreme oxidative stress conditions. P. putida ATH-43 genome now forms part of the 65 genomes of this species registered at the NCBI database (September, 2016) and it is highly related with the endophytic strain P. putida W619, which is also resistant to several heavy metals. Further characterization of multi-metal resistant psychrotrophic bacteria such as P. putida ATH-43 will be promising to develop novel strategies for heavy metal bioremediation in low temperature environments. All genome data has been submitted to NCBI.

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