Project description:Background. Bacillus subtilis is a favorable host for the production of industrially relevant proteins because of its capacity of secreting proteins into the medium to high levels, its GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status, its genetic accessibility and its capacity to grow in large fermentations. However, production of heterologous proteins still faces limitations. Results. This study aimed at the identification of bottlenecks in secretory protein production by analyzing the response of B. subtilis at the transcriptome level to overproduction of eight secretory proteins of endogenous and heterologous origin and with different subcellular or extracellular destination: secreted proteins (NprE and XynA of B. subtilis, Usp45 of Lactococcus lactis, TEM-1beta -lactamase of Escherichia coli), membrane proteins (LmrA of L. lactis and XylP of Lactobacillus pentosus) and lipoproteins (MntA and YcdH of B. subtilis). Responses specific for proteins with a common localization as well as more general stress responses were observed. The latter include upregulation of genes encoding intracellular stress proteins (groES/EL, CtsR regulated genes). Specific responses include upregulation of the liaIHGFSR operon under Usp45 and TEM-1 beta-lactamase overproduction; cssRS, htrA and htrB under all secreted proteins overproduction; sigW and SigW-regulated genes mainly under membrane proteins overproduction; and ykrL (encoding an HtpX homologue) specifically under membrane proteins overproduction. Conclusions. The results give better insights into B. subtilis responses to protein overproduction stress and provide potential targets for genetic engineering in order to further improve B. subtilis as a protein production host. Samples for transcriptome analyses were induced at the exponential-growth phase (OD600 = 0.7) with 0.1% subtilin (subtilin containing supernatant of subtilin producing B. subtilis strain ATCC 6633). Cells were harvested 30 min after induction. Three or four independent cultures of each strain (target strains and controls) were used, and cells were sampled for microarray experiment.
Project description:Background. Bacillus subtilis is a favorable host for the production of industrially relevant proteins because of its capacity of secreting proteins into the medium to high levels, its GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status, its genetic accessibility and its capacity to grow in large fermentations. However, production of heterologous proteins still faces limitations. Results. This study aimed at the identification of bottlenecks in secretory protein production by analyzing the response of B. subtilis at the transcriptome level to overproduction of eight secretory proteins of endogenous and heterologous origin and with different subcellular or extracellular destination: secreted proteins (NprE and XynA of B. subtilis, Usp45 of Lactococcus lactis, TEM-1beta -lactamase of Escherichia coli), membrane proteins (LmrA of L. lactis and XylP of Lactobacillus pentosus) and lipoproteins (MntA and YcdH of B. subtilis). Responses specific for proteins with a common localization as well as more general stress responses were observed. The latter include upregulation of genes encoding intracellular stress proteins (groES/EL, CtsR regulated genes). Specific responses include upregulation of the liaIHGFSR operon under Usp45 and TEM-1 beta-lactamase overproduction; cssRS, htrA and htrB under all secreted proteins overproduction; sigW and SigW-regulated genes mainly under membrane proteins overproduction; and ykrL (encoding an HtpX homologue) specifically under membrane proteins overproduction. Conclusions. The results give better insights into B. subtilis responses to protein overproduction stress and provide potential targets for genetic engineering in order to further improve B. subtilis as a protein production host.
Project description:Cellular membranes provide a barrier to toxins, play a central role in metabolism, and are essential for cell viability, making membrane proteins of key interest for microbial strain engineering. However, membrane protein expression often causes decreased cell viability and alterations to central metabolism. We hypothesized that some non-essential proteins may be antagonistic towards the expression of a desired membrane protein and thus expression stress may be alleviated by the deletion of the corresponding genes. To identify mutant Escherichia coli that tolerate greater expression of membrane proteins, we developed a generalizable method, FlowSeq, that utilizes a pooled, bar-coded transposon insertion library in tandem with cell sorting to access genome-wide impact on membrane protein expression. Five membrane proteins (CyoB, CydB, MdlB, YidC, and LepI) and one soluble protein (GST) fusted to GFP were screened with FlowSeq. We identified 15 gene deletion strains capable of increased membrane protein expresison, and 3 of these knockout strains also increased membrane protein function. To our knowledge, this study represents the first systematic approach to identify genetic deteminants of membrane protein expression.
Project description:Saccharomyces cerevisiae were treated with 1280 drugs from the Prestwick chemical library. Intracellular polar metabolite extracts were collected and measured in negative mode by flow injection analysis. In addition, intracellular metabolite extracts were collected and measured for inducible overexpression mutants in yeast membrane proteins.
Project description:Membrane-associated, integral membrane and secreted proteins are of key importance in many cellular processes. For most of the 28 952 predicted proteins in Arabidopsis, the actual subcellular localisation has not been demonstrated experimentally. So far, their potential membrane-association has been deduced from algorithms that predict transmembrane domains and signal peptides. However, the comprehensiveness and accuracy of these algorithms is still limited. The majority of membrane-associated and secreted proteins is synthesised on membrane-bound polysomes. Therefore, the isolation and characterisation of mRNA associated with membrane-bound polysomes offers an experimental tool for the genome-wide identification of these proteins. Here we describe an efficient method to isolate mRNA from membrane-bound polysomes and report on the validation of the method to enrich for transcripts encoding membrane-associated and secreted proteins. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the isolation method was investigated by DNA microarray analysis. Pearson correlations between transcript levels obtained from three replicate isolations showed that the method is highly reproducible. A significant enrichment for mRNAs encoding proteins containing predicted transmembrane domains and signal peptides was observed in the membrane-bound polysomal fraction. In this fraction, 301 transcripts were classified by gene ontologies as âcellular component unknownâ, and potentially encode previously unrecognised secreted or membrane-associated proteins. Membrane-bound (MBP) and free polysomes (FP) were isolated in triplicate from one batch of two weeks old aboveground parts of Arabidopsis seedlings. Each combination of isolated MBP and FP was applied to 4 microarrays, of which two were dyeswapped, giving a total of 12 arrays.
Project description:Vacuoles and lysosomes are single-membrane-bound organelles involved in diverse functions such as intracellular digestion and storage or secretion of metabolites. To understand their origin, evolution and fundamental features, the identification of proteins comprising these compartments in missing links would be invaluable. So, we isolated the vacuoles from Cyanidioschyzon merolae, which is considered to be one of the most primitive photosynthetic eukaryotes, and identified 46 proteins by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight-mass spectrometry. Keywords: peptide mass fingerprinting, MALDI-TOF
Project description:Membrane-associated, integral membrane and secreted proteins are of key importance in many cellular processes. For most of the 28 952 predicted proteins in Arabidopsis, the actual subcellular localisation has not been demonstrated experimentally. So far, their potential membrane-association has been deduced from algorithms that predict transmembrane domains and signal peptides. However, the comprehensiveness and accuracy of these algorithms is still limited. The majority of membrane-associated and secreted proteins is synthesised on membrane-bound polysomes. Therefore, the isolation and characterisation of mRNA associated with membrane-bound polysomes offers an experimental tool for the genome-wide identification of these proteins. Here we describe an efficient method to isolate mRNA from membrane-bound polysomes and report on the validation of the method to enrich for transcripts encoding membrane-associated and secreted proteins. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the isolation method was investigated by DNA microarray analysis. Pearson correlations between transcript levels obtained from three replicate isolations showed that the method is highly reproducible. A significant enrichment for mRNAs encoding proteins containing predicted transmembrane domains and signal peptides was observed in the membrane-bound polysomal fraction. In this fraction, 301 transcripts were classified by gene ontologies as ‘cellular component unknown’, and potentially encode previously unrecognised secreted or membrane-associated proteins. Keywords: mRNA localisation, mRNA fractionation, predict protein localisation
Project description:The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) supports biosynthesis of proteins with diverse transmembrane domain (TMD) lengths and hydrophobicity. Features in transmembrane domains such as charged residues in ion channels are often functionally important, but could pose a challenge during cotranslational membrane insertion and folding. Our systematic proteomic approaches in both yeast and human cells revealed that the ER membrane protein complex (EMC) binds to and promotes the biogenesis of a range of multipass transmembrane proteins, with a particular enrichment for transporters. Proximity-specific ribosome profiling demonstrates that the EMC engages clients cotranslationally and immediately following clusters of TMDs enriched for charged residues. The EMC can remain associated after completion of translation, which both protects clients from premature proteasomal degradation and allows recruitment of substrate-specific and general chaperones. Thus, the EMC broadly enables the biogenesis of multipass transmembrane proteins containing destabilizing features, thereby mitigating the trade-off between function and stability.