2013/12/17 by Seda Arat, George S. Bullerjahn, Arat, Seda +3 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #FOS: Biological sciences #Molecular Networks (q-bio.MN) #q-bio.MN
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1312.4616
This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to a major change in the methodology
arxiv created 2015/04/06 · arxiv updated 2015/04/07
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a metabolically flexible member of the Gammaproteobacteria. Under anaerobic conditions and the presence of nitrate, P. aeruginosa can perform (complete) denitrification, a respiratory process of dissimilatory nitrate reduction to nitrogen gas via nitrite (NO2), nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide (N2O). This study focuses on understanding the influence of environmental conditions on bacterial denitrification performance, using a mathematical model of a metabolic network in P. aeruginosa. To our knowledge, this is the first mathematical model of denitrification for this bacterium. Analysis of the long-term behavior of the network under changing concentration levels of oxygen (O2), nitrate (NO3), and phosphate (PO4) suggests that PO4 concentration strongly affects denitrification performance. The model provides five predictions on denitrification activity of P. aeruginosa under various environmental conditions, and these predictions are either experimentally validated or supported by pertinent biological literature. One motivation for this study is to capture the effect of PO4 on a denitrification metabolic network of P. aeruginosa in order to shed light on mechanisms for greenhouse gas N2O accumulation during seasonal oxygen depletion in aquatic environments such as Lake Erie (Laurentian Great Lakes, USA).