Acidithiobacillus spp. are the most active bacteria in bioleaching and bioremediation, because of their remarkable extreme environmental adaptabilities and unique metabolic characteristics. The researches on regulatory mechanisms of energy metabolism and stress resistance are critical for the understanding and application of Acidithiobacillus spp. However, the lack of an ideal reporter gene has become an obstacle for studying genes expression and regulatory mechanism in these chemoautotrophic bacteria. In this study, we reported the firefly luciferase as a reporter gene for Acidithiobacillus caldus (A. caldus) and created a firefly luciferase (Luc) reporter system. The Luc system was applied for the quantitative analysis of the transcription strength of the promoters of tetH gene and the feoA gene in A. caldus. Moreover, the regulating effect of ferric uptake regulator (Fur) on the feoP gene in A. caldus was determined using the Luc system. The Luc reporter system is not only used in the study of regulatory mechanism of A. caldus, but also applied in the researches of other Acidithiobacillus species. Therefore, this study provides a new useful tool for the studies on the molecular biological mechanism and synthetic biological modification of these chemoautotrophic bacteria, which would promote the industrial application of Acidithiobacillus spp.

中文翻译：

---

萤火虫荧光素酶 (Luc) 作为化学自养和嗜酸酸性硫杆菌属的报告基因的应用。

酸硫杆菌属 是生物浸出和生物修复中最活跃的细菌，因为它们具有显着的极端环境适应性和独特的代谢特征。能量代谢和抗逆调节机制的研究对于酸性硫杆菌属的认识和应用至关重要。然而，缺乏理想的报告基因已成为研究这些化学自养细菌基因表达和调控机制的障碍。在这项研究中，我们报道了萤火虫萤光素酶作为酸性硫杆菌（A. caldus）的报告基因，并创建了萤火虫萤光素酶 (Luc) 报告系统。应用Luc系统定量分析A.caldus中tetH基因和feoA基因启动子的转录强度。而且，使用Luc系统测定铁摄取调节剂(Fur)对A. caldus feoP基因的调节作用。Luc报告系统不仅用于A.caldus调控机制的研究，还应用于其他酸性硫杆菌属的研究。因此，本研究为研究这些化学自养细菌的分子生物学机制和合成生物学修饰提供了新的有用工具，将促进酸硫杆菌属的工业应用。