Project description:Methylomicrobium buryatense 5GB1 is an obligate methylotroph, which grows on methane or methanol with similar growth rates. Core metabolic pathways are similar on both substrates, but recent studies of methane metabolism suggest that growth on methanol might have significant differences from growth on methane. In this study, both a targeted metabolomics approach as well as a 13C tracer approach have been taken to understand core carbon metabolism in M. buryatense 5GB1 during methanol growth, to determine whether such differences occur. Targeted metabolomics analyses were performed on both methane and methanol cultures to identify metabolic nodes with altered fluxes. Several key metabolites showed significant differences in pool size. Noticeably, 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate (KDPG) showed much larger pools under methanol culture, suggesting the Entner-Doudoroff (ED) pathway was more active. Intermediates in other parts of metabolism also showed differences in pool sizes under methanol growth. A systematic shift of active core metabolism is proposed to explain the changes. In order to distinguish flux partition differences at the C3-C4 node, 13C tracer analysis was also applied to methanol-grown cultures. Using the experimental results as constraints, we applied flux balance analysis to determine the metabolic flux phenotype of M. buryatense 5GB1 growing on methanol. The resulting new insights into core metabolism of this methanotroph provide an improved basis for future strain design.
Project description:DNA microarray analysis of gene expression in response to physiological and genetic changes that affect tryptophan metabolism in Escherichia coli. We investigated the global changes in mRNA abundance in Escherichia coli elicited by various perturbations of tryptophan metabolism. To do so we printed DNA microarrays containing 95% of all annotated E. coli ORFs. We determined the expression profile that is predominantly dictated by the activity of the tryptophan repressor. Only three operons, trp, mtr, and aroH, exhibited appreciable expression changes consistent with this profile. The quantitative changes we observed in mRNA levels for the five genes of the trp operon were consistent within a factor of 2, with expectations based on established Trp protein levels. Several operons known to be regulated by the TyrR protein, aroF-tyrA, aroL, aroP, and aroG, were down-regulated on addition of tryptophan. TyrR can be activated by any one of the three aromatic amino acids. Only one operon, tnaAB, was significantly activated by the presence of tryptophan in the medium. We uncovered a plethora of likely indirect effects of changes in tryptophan metabolism on intracellular mRNA pools, most prominent of which was the sensitivity of arginine biosynthetic operons to tryptophan starvation. This study is detailed in Khodursky AB et al.(2000) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97:12170-5 Keywords: other
Project description:We report the effect of oxygenation state in lactose grown escherichia coli producing recombinant proteins. To shed more light on the mechanistic correlation between the uptake of lactose and dissolved oxygen, a comprehensive study has been undertaken with the E. coli BL21 (DE3) strain. Differences in consumption pattern of lactose, metabolites, biomass and product formation due to aerobiosis have been investigated. Transcriptomic profiling of metabolic changes due to aerobic process and microaerobic process during protein formation phase has been studied and the results provide a deeper understanding of protein production in E. coli BL21 (DE3) strains with lactose based promoter expression systems.This study also provides a scientific understanding of escherichia coli metabolism upon oxygen fluctuations.
Project description:Liver metabolism is central to human physiology and influences the pathogenesis of common metabolic diseases. Yet, our understanding of human liver metabolism remains incomplete, with much of current knowledge based on animal or cell culture models that do not fully recapitulate human physiology. Here, we performed in-depth measurement of metabolism in intact human liver tissue ex vivo using global 13C tracing, non-targeted mass spectrometry and model-based metabolic flux analysis. Cultured liver tissue exhibited normal anatomical structure and retained canonical liver functions such as glucose production, albumin and VLDL synthesis at near-physiological rates. Isotope tracing with a highly 13C-labeled medium generated 13C enrichment in hundreds of compounds, allowing qualitative assessment of a wide range of metabolic pathways within a single experiment. This confirmed well-known features of liver metabolism, but also revealed unexpected metabolic activities such as de novo creatine synthesis and branched-chain amino acid transamination, where human liver appears to differ from rodent models. Metabolic flux analysis identified glycogenolysis as the main source of glucose production, which could be suppressed by pharmacological inhibition of glycogen phosphorylase. Glucose production ex vivo also correlated with donor plasma glucose, suggesting that cultured liver tissue retains individual metabolic phenotypes. Moreover, liver tissue responded to postprandial levels of nutrients and insulin by suppressing glucose production and increasing nutrient uptake. Isotope tracing ex vivo allows measuring human liver metabolism with great depth and resolution in an experimentally tractable system.
Project description:Most available knowledge on fungal arginine metabolism is derived from studies on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in which arginine catabolism is initiated by releasing urea via the arginase reaction. Orthologs of the S. cerevisiae genes encoding the first three enzymes in the arginase pathway were cloned from Kluyveromyces lactis and shown to functionally complement the corresponding deletion in S. cerevisiae. Surprisingly, deletion of the single K. lactis arginase gene KlCAR1 did not completely abolish growth on arginine as nitrogen source. Growth rate of mutant strongly increased during serial transfer in shake-flask cultures. A combination of RNAseq-based transcriptome analysis and 13C-15N-based flux analysis was used to elucidate the arginase-independent pathway. Isotopic 13C15N-enrichment in ?-aminobutyrate revealed succinate as the entry point in the TCA cycle of the alternative pathway. Transcript analysis combined with enzyme activity measurements indicated increased expression in the Klcar1? mutant of a guanidinobutyrase (EC.3.5.3.7), an enzyme not previously demonstrated in fungi. Expression of the K. lactis KLLA0F27995g (renamed KlGBU1) encoding guanidinobutyrase enabled S. cerevisiae to use guanidinobutyrate as sole nitrogen source and its deletion in K. lactis almost completely abolish growth on this nitrogen source. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that this enzyme activity is widespread in fungi. The goal of the present study was to characterize arginine catabolism in K. lactis. To this end, CAR1, CAR2 and PRO3 orthologs in K. lactis were identified and functionally analysed by deletion, expression in S. cerevisiae and enzyme activity assays. Since deletion of the arginase gene in K. lactis was found not to completely abolish growth on arginine as a sole nitrogen source, the alternative pathway for arginine catabolism operating in this yeast was studied by a combination of transcriptome analysis, 13C and 15N isotope-based flux analysis and enzyme activity assays in cell extracts. To investigate arginine metabolism in the arginase-negative K. lactis strain, strains GG1632 (Klku80? KlCAR1 reference strain) and IMS0367 (Klcar1? Arg+) were grown in aerobic bioreactor batch cultures on glucose chemically defined medium with arginine as sole nitrogen source. RNA sequencing of samples taken during the exponential phase of growth on glucose-arginine media of the reference strain G1631 and the arginase less strain IMS0367 were compared resulting in the characterization of a new function.
Project description:By integration of transcriptome, CHIP-seq, ATAC-seq, proteomic and metabolite screening followed by carbon tracing (U-13C-Glucose, U-13C-Glutamine and U-13C-Palmitic acid) and extracellular flux analysis we provided evidence that genetic (shRNA and CRISPR/Cas9) and pharmacological (Alisertib) AURKA inhibition elicited substantial metabolic reprogramming supported in part by inhibition of MYC targets and concomitant activation of PPARA signaling. While glycolysis was suppressed by AURKA inhibition, we noted a compensatory increase in oxygen consumption rate fueled by enhanced fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Whereas interference with AURKA elicited a suppression of c-Myc, we detected an upregulation of PGC1α, a master regulator of oxidative metabolism, upon AURKA inhibition. Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments confirmed binding of c-Myc to the promoter region of PGC1α, which is abrogated by AURKA inhibition and in turn unleashed PGC1α expression. To interfere with this oxidative metabolic reprogramming, we combined AURKA inhibitors with inhibitors of FAO (etomoxir) and electron transport chain (gamitrinib) and found substantial synergistic growth inhibition in patient derived xenograft in vitro and extension of overall survival without induction of toxicity in normal tissue.
Project description:By integration of transcriptome, CHIP-seq, ATAC-seq, proteomic and metabolite screening followed by carbon tracing (U-13C-Glucose, U-13C-Glutamine and U-13C-Palmitic acid) and extracellular flux analysis we provided evidence that genetic (shRNA and CRISPR/Cas9) and pharmacological (Alisertib) AURKA inhibition elicited substantial metabolic reprogramming supported in part by inhibition of MYC targets and concomitant activation of PPARA signaling. While glycolysis was suppressed by AURKA inhibition, we noted a compensatory increase in oxygen consumption rate fueled by enhanced fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Whereas interference with AURKA elicited a suppression of c-Myc, we detected an upregulation of PGC1α, a master regulator of oxidative metabolism, upon AURKA inhibition. Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments confirmed binding of c-Myc to the promoter region of PGC1α, which is abrogated by AURKA inhibition and in turn unleashed PGC1α expression. To interfere with this oxidative metabolic reprogramming, we combined AURKA inhibitors with inhibitors of FAO (etomoxir) and electron transport chain (gamitrinib) and found substantial synergistic growth inhibition in patient derived xenograft in vitro and extension of overall survival without induction of toxicity in normal tissue.
Project description:This dataset is part of a study aimed at developing algorithms for the quantification of stable isotope content in microorganisms after labeling them with stable isotope-labeled substrates. In this dataset Escherichia coli cultures were labeled with different percentages (1% or 10%) of either single-carbon 13C glucose (13C2) or fully-labeled 13C glucose (13C1-6). Labeled cells were subsequently mixed with unlabeled E. coli cells in fixed ratios (50%, 90%, 95%, 99%). Cultures of E. coli were grown in M9 minimal medium in which a percentage of the glucose was replaced with 13C2 or 13C1-6 glucose for >10 generations to achieve close to complete labeling of cells. Triplicate cultures were grown for each percentage. Please note that the unlabeled glucose that was used of course had a natural content of 13C of around 1.1%, thus the 0% added label samples have an actual 13C content of 1.1% and all added label is on top of this value. We included a tab delimited table with this submission providing details on all raw files.
Project description:Enzymes maintain metabolism and their concentration affects cellular fitness. High enzyme-levels are costly, but low enzyme-levels can limit metabolic flux. Here, we used CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) to study the consequences of decreasing metabolic enzymes in E. coli below wild-type levels. A time-resolved competition assay with a metabolism-wide CRISPRi library showed that fitness defects appeared late after induction of knockdowns. This suggested that metabolism is robust against decreases of enzymes. The metabolome and proteome of 30 CRISPRi strains revealed the mechanisms that enabled this robustness. First, substrates and allosteric effectors buffered knockdowns by increasing the activity of target-enzymes. Later, metabolite-transcription interactions compensated knockdowns by upregulating the target-pathway or bypass-pathways. For example, we found a new regulation strategy in which 6-phosphogluconate is responsible for bypassing bottlenecks in the pentose-p pathway via the Entner-Doudoroff-pathway. Thus, regulatory metabolites buffer decreases of enzyme-levels, which can occur in nature due to expression noise, mutations or environmental conditions.