Rose Krebs

Gold ions within the environment are toxic to bacteria, yet Delftia acidovorans can grow in the presence of these ions. D. acidovorans accomplishes this through the production of delftibactin, a secondary metabolite that is able to form gold nanoparticles from gold ions in solution. Additionally, delftibactin has shown antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) (2). A set of 16 genes called the del cluster are responsible for the production of delftibactin (1). These genes were originally identified in D. acidovorans SPH-1, and little is known about their presence and similarity across the Delftia genus (1). To answer this question, we analyzed a series of Delftia species and strains using publicly available tools in KBase from the US Department of Energy. KBase was also used to assemble metagenomic reads into MAGs(metagenome-assembled genomes) to try to analyze novel Delftia genomes. We further investigated the presence and similarity of the del cluster in assembled Delftia genomes from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). Our results indicate the del cluster is found not only in D. acidovorans, but is present across the Delftia genus. At the protein level, the clusters are highly similar in all genes except delG and delH which often contained gaps where portions of the genes were not captured in the assembly. Although we did not identify novel MAGs of Delftia from any metagenomic samples, we were able to establish a workflow that can be followed for future studies and experiments.