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Transcriptome profiling of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 in response to agmatine.

ABSTRACT: The dairy strain Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 (formerly GE2-14) synthesizes the biogenic amine putrescine from agmatine via the agmatine deiminase (AGDI) pathway [1]. The AGDI cluster of L. lactis is composed by five genes aguR, aguB, aguD, aguA and aguC. The last four genes are co-transcribed as a single policistronic mRNA forming the catabolic operon aguBDAC, which encodes the proteins necessary for agmatine uptake and its conversion into putrescine [1], [2]. The first gene of the cluster, aguR, encodes a transmembrane protein that functions as a one-component signal transduction system that senses the agmatine concentration of the medium and accordingly regulates the transcription of aguBDAC[2]. The catabolic operon aguBDAC is transcriptionally activated by agmatine [2] and transcriptionally regulated by carbon catabolite repression (CCR) via glucose, but not by other sugars such as lactose or galactose [1], [3]. On the contrary, the transcription of the aguR regulatory gene is not subject to CCR regulation [1], [3] nor is regulated by agmatine [2]. In this study we report the transcriptional profiling of L. lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 grown in M17 medium with galactose (GalM17) as carbon source and supplemented with agmatine, compared to that of the strain grown in the same culture medium without agmatine. The transcriptional profiling data of agmatine-regulated genes were deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database under Accession no. GSE74808.

SUBMITTER: Del Rio B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4778615 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Lactococcus lactis is one of the most commonly used lactic acid bacteria in the dairy industry. Activation of competence for natural DNA transformation in this species would greatly improve the selection of novel strains with desired genetic traits. Here, we investigated the activation of natural transformation in L. lactis subsp. cremoris KW2, a strain of plant origin whose genome encodes the master competence regulator ComX and the complete set of proteins usually required for natural transformation. In the absence of knowledge about competence regulation in this species, we constitutively overproduced ComX in a reporter strain of late competence phase activation and showed, by transcriptomic analyses, a ComX-dependent induction of all key competence genes. We further demonstrated that natural DNA transformation is functional in this strain and requires the competence DNA uptake machinery. Since constitutive ComX overproduction is unstable, we alternatively expressed comX under the control of an endogenous xylose-inducible promoter. This regulated system was used to successfully inactivate the adaptor protein MecA and subunits of the Clp proteolytic complex, which were previously shown to be involved in ComX degradation in streptococci. In the presence of a small amount of ComX, the deletion of mecA, clpC, or clpP genes markedly increased the activation of the late competence phase and transformability. Altogether, our results report the functionality of natural DNA transformation in L. lactis and pave the way for the identification of signaling mechanisms that trigger the competence state in this species.IMPORTANCELactococcus lactis is a lactic acid bacterium of major importance, which is used as a starter species for milk fermentation, a host for heterologous protein production, and a delivery platform for therapeutic molecules. Here, we report the functionality of natural transformation in L. lactis subsp. cremoris KW2 by the overproduction of the master competence regulator ComX. The developed procedure enables a flexible approach to modify the chromosome with single point mutation, sequence insertion, or sequence replacement. These results represent an important step for the genetic engineering of L. lactis that will facilitate the design of strains optimized for industrial applications. This will also help to discover natural regulatory mechanisms controlling competence in the genus Lactococcus.

Project description:Twenty Lactococcus lactis strains with an L. lactis subsp. lactis phenotype isolated from five traditional cheeses made of raw milk with no added starters belonging to the L. lactis subsp. lactis and L. lactis subsp. cremoris genotypes (lactis and cremoris genotypes, respectively; 10 strains each) were subjected to a series of phenotypic and genetic typing methods, with the aims of determining their phylogenetic relationships and suitability as starters. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis of intact genomes digested with SalI and SmaI proved that all strains were different except for three isolates of the cremoris genotype, which showed identical PFGE profiles. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis using internal sequences of seven loci (namely, atpA, rpoA, pheS, pepN, bcaT, pepX, and 16S rRNA gene) revealed considerable intergenotype nucleotide polymorphism, although deduced amino acid changes were scarce. Analysis of the MLST data for the present strains and others from other dairy and nondairy sources showed that all of them clustered into the cremoris or lactis genotype group, by using both independent and combined gene sequences. These two groups of strains also showed distinctive carbohydrate fermentation and enzyme activity profiles, with the strains in the cremoris group showing broader profiles. However, the profiles of resistance/susceptibility to 16 antibiotics were very similar, showing no atypical resistance, except for tetracycline resistance in three identical cremoris genotype isolates. The numbers and concentrations of volatile compounds produced in milk by the strains belonging to these two groups were clearly different, with the cremoris genotype strains producing higher concentrations of more branched-chain, derived compounds. Together, the present results support the idea that the lactis and cremoris genotypes of phenotypic Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis actually represent true subspecies. Some strains of the two subspecies in this study appear to be good starter candidates.

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Transcriptome profiling of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 in response to agmatine.

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