నైరూప్య

Deinococcus radiodurans: an extremophilic bacterium with high potential for applications in biotechnology

Mohammad Moradi

Deinococcus radiodurans is a gram positive extremophilic bacterium that is tolerant toward a variety of environmental stresses including Ionizing waves, oxidative stresses, dryness, light, and UV. This bacterium is capable of repairing different damages imposed on its DNA content. By having different enzymes including catalase and superoxide dismutase, it could survive the damages induced by hydrogen peroxide and superoxide compounds (1). Also, D. radiodurans has showed to survive DNA damages in outer space for three years. So far, D. radiodurans and its genes have been used in various biotechnology studies. Until now, many studies have been carried out about D. radiodurans genome to investigate its efficacy for producing recombinant industrial strains (2, 3). From the industrial aspect of biotechnology, recombinant expression of the pprI and IrrE genes have shown to efficacy of yeast for biofuel production. Moreover, regarding bioelectricity generation, the expression of IrrE gene from this strain has demonstrated to enhance the efficacy of Pseudomonas aeruginosa-inoculated microbial fuel cells (MFCs) (2, 4, 5). From the medical perspective of biotechnology, the expression of UVSE gene of this bacterium has demonstrated to be effective for repairing CPD and 6-4 pp DNA damages in human cells (6). In the field of environmental biotechnology, the application of this bacteria has provided promising results for biodegradation of radioactive-mixed wastes (7). It is hoped that in the future, the applications of this strain will help the scientists to bring more development in the different branches of biotechnology.