Improving confirmed nanometric sulfur bioproduction using engineered Thioalkalivibrio versutus

Complicated production procedures and superior characteristics of nano-sized sulfur elevate its price to 25-40 fold higher than micrograde kind. Also, natural gas hydrogen sulfide levels are restricted because of its toxic environmental consequences. Thioalkalivibrio versutus is a polyextremophilic industrial autotroph with high natural gas desulfurization capability. Here, nanometric (>50 nm) sulfur bioproduction using T. versutus while desulfurizing natural gas was validated. Also, this production was enhanced by 166.7% via lowering sulfate production by 55.1%. A specially-developed CRISPR system, with 42% editing efficiency, simplified the genome editing workflow scheme for this challenging bacterium. In parallel, sulfur metabolism was uncovered using proteins mining and transcriptome studies for defining sulfate-producing key genes (heterodisulfide reductase-like complex, sulfur dioxygenase, sulfite dehydrogenase and sulfite oxidase). This study provided cost-effective nanometric sulfur production and improved this production using a novel CRISPR strategy, which could be suitable for industrial polyextremophiles, after uncovering sulfur pathways in T. versutus.