Dataset Information

Complete genome sequence and the expression pattern of plasmids of the model ethanologen Zymomonas mobilis ZM4 and its xylose-utilizing derivatives 8b and 2032.

ABSTRACT: Background:Zymomonas mobilis is a natural ethanologen being developed and deployed as an industrial biofuel producer. To date, eight Z. mobilis strains have been completely sequenced and found to contain 2-8 native plasmids. However, systematic verification of predicted Z. mobilis plasmid genes and their contribution to cell fitness has not been hitherto addressed. Moreover, the precise number and identities of plasmids in Z. mobilis model strain ZM4 have been unclear. The lack of functional information about plasmid genes in ZM4 impedes ongoing studies for this model biofuel-producing strain. Results:In this study, we determined the complete chromosome and plasmid sequences of ZM4 and its engineered xylose-utilizing derivatives 2032 and 8b. Compared to previously published and revised ZM4 chromosome sequences, the ZM4 chromosome sequence reported here contains 65 nucleotide sequence variations as well as a 2400-bp insertion. Four plasmids were identified in all three strains, with 150 plasmid genes predicted in strain ZM4 and 2032, and 153 plasmid genes predicted in strain 8b due to the insertion of heterologous DNA for expanded substrate utilization. Plasmid genes were then annotated using Blast2GO, InterProScan, and systems biology data analyses, and most genes were found to have apparent orthologs in other organisms or identifiable conserved domains. To verify plasmid gene prediction, RNA-Seq was used to map transcripts and also compare relative gene expression under various growth conditions, including anaerobic and aerobic conditions, or growth in different concentrations of biomass hydrolysates. Overall, plasmid genes were more responsive to varying hydrolysate concentrations than to oxygen availability. Additionally, our results indicated that although all plasmids were present in low copy number (about 1-2 per cell), the copy number of some plasmids varied under specific growth conditions or due to heterologous gene insertion. Conclusions:The complete genome of ZM4 and two xylose-utilizing derivatives is reported in this study, with an emphasis on identifying and characterizing plasmid genes. Plasmid gene annotation, validation, expression levels at growth conditions of interest, and contribution to host fitness are reported for the first time.

SUBMITTER: Yang S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5930841 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Complete genome sequence and the expression pattern of plasmids of the model ethanologen Zymomonas mobilis ZM4 and its xylose-utilizing derivatives 8b and 2032.

Yang Shihui S Vera Jessica M JM Grass Jeff J Savvakis Giannis G Moskvin Oleg V OV Yang Yongfu Y McIlwain Sean J SJ Lyu Yucai Y Zinonos Irene I Hebert Alexander S AS Coon Joshua J JJ Bates Donna M DM Sato Trey K TK Brown Steven D SD Himmel Michael E ME Zhang Min M Landick Robert R Pappas Katherine M KM Zhang Yaoping Y

Biotechnology for biofuels 20180502

<h4>Background</h4>Zymomonas mobilis is a natural ethanologen being developed and deployed as an industrial biofuel producer. To date, eight Z. mobilis strains have been completely sequenced and found to contain 2-8 native plasmids. However, systematic verification of predicted Z. mobilis plasmid genes and their contribution to cell fitness has not been hitherto addressed. Moreover, the precise number and identities of plasmids in Z. mobilis model strain ZM4 have been ...[more]

PMID: 29743953

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Project description:Background: Lignocellulosic biomass is a promising renewable feedstock for the microbial production of fuels. To release the major fermentable sugars such as glucose and xylose, pretreatment, hydrolysis, and subsequent conditioning of biomass feedstock are needed. During this process, many toxic compounds are produced or introduced which subsequently inhibit microbial growth and in many cases the production titer and rate. An understanding of the toxic effects of compounds found in hydrolysate on the fermentation microorganism is critical to improving biofuel yields in the process. One of the inhibitory compounds is furfural, liberated from hemicelluloses, which strongly inhibits the cell growth and ethanol production especially from xylose. Zymomonas mobilis is a capable ethanologenic bacterium with high ethanol productivity and high levels of ethanol tolerance. The development of robust biocatalyst to tolerate the lignocellulosic pretreatment inhibitors is one of the key elements for economic biofuel production. Results: In this study, the molecular responses of Z. mobilis to furfural, one major pretreatment inhibitor, were investigated using transcriptomic approaches of chip-based microarray. Furfural shock time course experiment with 3 g/L furfural supplemented when cells reach exponential phase and stress response experiment in the presence of 2 g/L furfural from the beginning of fermentation were carried out to study the short and long-term effect of furfural on 8b physiological and transcriptional profiles. The presence and supplementation of furfural negatively affect 8b growth in terms of final biomass and the fermentation time. Transcriptomic studies indicated that the response of 8b to furfural is dynamic, complex and differences exist between short-term shock response and long-term stress response. However, the gene function categories are similar with most downregulated genes related to translation and biosynthesis, while the furfural-upregulated genes were mostly related to cellular processes of general stress response and energy metabolism. Conclusions: Similar to previous report that acetate inhibited the growth of Z. mobilis 8b in RM using glucose or xylose as carbon source, the existence or supplementation of another major hydrolysate inhibitor furfural also inhibited 8b growth with slowing the substrate utilization and ethanol production. The difference between carbon sources is more dramatic than that of the major hydrolysate inhibitors of both NH4OAc (GSE57553) and furfural (this study). Several gene targets have been selected for genetic studies with promising preliminary results.

Project description:Zymomonas mobilis is an alpha-proteobacterium that is a promising platform for industrial scale production of biofuels due to its efficient ethanol fermentation and low biomass generation. Z. mobilis is aerotolerant and encodes a complete respiratory electron transport chain, but the benefit of respiration for growth in oxic conditions has never been confirmed, despite decades of research. Growth and ethanol production of wild-type Z. mobilis is poor in oxic conditions indicating that it does not benefit from oxidative phosphorylation. Additionally, in previous studies, aerobic growth improved significantly when respiratory genes were disrupted (ndh) or acquired point mutations (cydA and cydB), even if respiration was significantly reduced by these changes. Here, we obtained clean deletions of respiratory genes ndh and cydAB, individually and in combination, and showed, for the first time, that deletion of cydAB completely inhibited O2 respiration and dramatically reduced growth in oxic conditions. Both respiration and aerobic growth were restored by expressing a heterologous, water-forming NADH oxidase, noxE. Oxygen can have many negative effects, including formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or directly inactivating oxygen sensitive enzymes. Our results suggest that the effect of molecular oxygen on enzymes had a greater negative impact on Z. mobilis than formation of ROS. This result shows that the main role of the electron transport chain in Z. mobilis is reducing the intracellular concentration of molecular oxygen, helping to explain why it is beneficial for Z. mobilis to use electron transport chain complexes that have little capacity to contribute to oxidative phosphorylation. IMPORTANCE A key to producing next-generation biofuels is to engineer microbes that efficiently convert non-food materials into drop-in fuels, and to engineer microbes effectively, we must understand their metabolism thoroughly. Zymomonas mobilis is a bacterium that is a promising candidate biofuel producer, but its metabolism remains poorly understood, especially its metabolism when exposed to oxygen. Although Z. mobilis respires with oxygen, its aerobic growth is poor, and disruption of genes related to respiration counterintuitively improves aerobic growth. This unusual result has sparked decades of research and debate regarding the function of respiration in Z. mobilis. Here, we used a new set of mutants to determine that respiration is essential for aerobic growth and likely protects the cells from damage caused by oxygen. We conclude that the respiratory pathway of Z. mobilis should not be deleted from chassis strains for industrial production because this would yield a strain that is intolerant of oxygen, which is more difficult to manage in industrial settings.

Dataset Information

Complete genome sequence and the expression pattern of plasmids of the model ethanologen Zymomonas mobilis ZM4 and its xylose-utilizing derivatives 8b and 2032.

Publications

Complete genome sequence and the expression pattern of plasmids of the model ethanologen <i>Zymomonas mobilis</i> ZM4 and its xylose-utilizing derivatives 8b and 2032.

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