Project description:Lactobacillus helveticus is a rod-shaped lactic acid bacterium that is widely used in the manufacture of fermented dairy foods and for production of bioactive peptides from milk proteins. Although L. helveticus is commonly associated with milk environments, phylogenetic studies show it is closely related to an intestinal species, Lactobacillus acidophilus, which has been shown to impart probiotic health benefits to humans. This relationship has fueled a prevailing hypothesis that L. helveticus is a highly specialized derivative of L. acidophilus which has adapted to acidified whey. However, L. helveticus has also been sporadically recovered from non-dairy environments, which argues the species may not be as highly specialized as is widely believed. This study employed genome sequence analysis and comparative genome hybridizations to investigate genomic diversity among L. helveticus strains collected from cheese, whey, and whiskey malt, as well as commercial cultures used in manufacture of cheese or bioactive dairy foods. Results revealed considerable variability in gene content between some L. helveticus strains, and indicated the species should not be viewed as a strict dairy-niche specialist. In addition, comparative genomic analyses provided new insight on several industrially and ecologically important attributes of L. helveticus that may facilitate commercial strain selection.
2013-08-16 | GSE23660 | GEO
Project description:Caproate and hydrogen co-production in lactate-based chain elongation
Project description:Lactobacillus helveticus is a rod-shaped lactic acid bacterium that is widely used in the manufacture of fermented dairy foods and for production of bioactive peptides from milk proteins. Although L. helveticus is commonly associated with milk environments, phylogenetic studies show it is closely related to an intestinal species, Lactobacillus acidophilus, which has been shown to impart probiotic health benefits to humans. This relationship has fueled a prevailing hypothesis that L. helveticus is a highly specialized derivative of L. acidophilus which has adapted to acidified whey. However, L. helveticus has also been sporadically recovered from non-dairy environments, which argues the species may not be as highly specialized as is widely believed. This study employed genome sequence analysis and comparative genome hybridizations to investigate genomic diversity among L. helveticus strains collected from cheese, whey, and whiskey malt, as well as commercial cultures used in manufacture of cheese or bioactive dairy foods. Results revealed considerable variability in gene content between some L. helveticus strains, and indicated the species should not be viewed as a strict dairy-niche specialist. In addition, comparative genomic analyses provided new insight on several industrially and ecologically important attributes of L. helveticus that may facilitate commercial strain selection. 42 samples were hybridized to the microarray chip, which contains probe sequences from L. helveticus CNRZ32. CNRZ32 was also hybridized and used as the reference sample. Data from the microarray was statistically analyzed using the R software. Samples were compared to the reference (CNRZ32) to investigate genome diversity amoung L. helveticus strains,
Project description:Clostridium ljungdahlii not only utilizes CO, but also H2 as energy source during autotrophic growth. In theory, CO is a more energetically and thermodynamically favourable energy source than H2 in the gas fermentation of C. ljungdahlii. However, how C. ljungdahlii conserves energy for growth and ethanol/acetate formation grown on CO or CO2/H2 is not in great detail. In this study, C. ljungdahlii was fermented on CO and CO2/ H2 at pH 6.0 with 0.1 MPa gas pressure. C. ljungdahlii produced 27 g/L acetate, 9 g/L ethanol, 8 g/L 2,3-butanediol and traces of lactate in the presence of CO as energy source, while it produced 25.8 0.1 g/L acetate, 1.8 0.1 g/L ethanol, 0.7 0.01g/L 2,3-butanediol and trances of lactate in the same fermentation condition using H2 as energy source. Therefore, comparative transcriptomes between cells grown on CO and cells grown on H2/CO2 were performed to investigate gene expression profiles based on three biological replicates.