DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop VIII
February 27-March 2, 2000  Santa Fe, NM

158. Engineering Deinococcus radiodurans for Bioremediation: Impact of Genomic Sequence

K. S. Makarova^1,2; E. V. Koonin³; H. Brim1, L. Aravind², K. W. Minton¹, L.Tatusov², Y. I. Wolf², O. White³; and M. J. Daly¹

¹Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814-479, ²The National Center for Biotechnology Information, ³The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20814. 3The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, MD 20850.

mdaly@usuhs.mil

Extremophiles are nearly always defined with singular characteristics that allow existence within a singular extreme environment. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans qualifies as a polyextremeophile, showing remarkable resistance to a range of damage caused by ionizing radiation, dessication, ultraviolet radiation, oxidizing agents, and electrophilic mutagens. D. radiodurans is most famous for its extreme resistance to ionizing radiation; it not only can grow continuously in the presence of chronic radiation (6,000 rad per hour), but it can survive acute exposures to gamma radiation that exceed 1,500,000 rad without lethality or induced mutation. These characteristics were the impetus for sequencing its genome and the ongoing development of its use for bioremediation of radioactive wastes. We are using the genomic sequence as a guide to metabolic engineering of D.radiodurans for growth on toxic organic compounds in radioactive sites; and enhancing its survival in nutrient poor radioactive environments. In part, this work is exploiting a newly developed system for analyzing gene expression patterns in D. radiodurans.