14.06.2022

First metabolic model of Proteus vulgaris FDAARGOS_1507 (DSM 46228)

Manuel Harke reconstructed the first genome-scale metabolic model of Proteus vulgaris during his master’s thesis.

P. vulgaris is a Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic bacterium. It was first discovered in 1885 due to its swarming ability and involvement in putrefaction. Since then, it has been discovered that P. vulgaris is a commensal of various different microbiomes throughout the human and animal bodies. The bacterium is classified as an opportunistic pathogen and can lead to many infections.

To further understand the metabolic processes and answer the question of what metabolites are essential for the bacterium to grow, Manuel O. Harke reconstructed the first metabolic model of P. vulgaris during his master’s thesis. The reconstruction and evaluation were done using various software tools and self-written scripts.

The model simulates growth on various media, such as the synthetic nasal medium SNM3 and an artificial urine medium. These media were minimized to identify the essential metabolites, and their respective components were recombined. This process resulted in seven different minimal component compositions.

The model was uploaded to the BioModels database and will not yet released upon publication under this accession: www.ebi.ac.uk/biomodels/MODEL2205300001.