Targeted Isolation of Proteins from Natural Microbial Communities Living in an Extreme Environment

Microorganisms from extreme environments are often very difficult to cultivate, precluding detailed study by biochemical and physiological techniques. Recent advances in genomic sequencing and proteomic measurements of samples obtained from natural communities have allowed new access to these uncultivated extremophiles and identified abundant proteins that can be isolated directly from natural samples. Here we report the isolation of two abundant heme proteins from low-diversity biofilm microbial communities that thrive in very acidic (pH ~ 1), metal-rich water in a subsurface mine. Purification and detailed characterization of these proteins has afforded new insight into the possible mechanism of Fe(II) oxidation by Leptospirillum Group II, the dominant population in most of these biofilms, and demonstrated that the abundance and posttranslational modifications of one of these proteins is dependent on the lifecycle of the biofilm.