Project description:The presence of anti-microbial phenolic compounds, such as the model compound ferulic acid, in biomass hydrolysates poses significant challenges to the widespread use of biomass in conjunction with whole cell biocatalysis or fermentation. Currently, these inhibitory compounds must be removed through additional downstream processing to create feedstock suitable for most industrially important microbial strains. This study explores the high ferulic acid tolerance in Lactobacillus brevis (L. brevis), a lactic acid bacteria often found in fermentation processes, by global transcriptional response analysis. The transcriptional profile of L. brevis under ferulic acid stress reveals that the presence of ferulic acid primarily triggers the expression of membrane proteins to counteract ferulic acid induced changes in membrane fluidity and ion leakage, in the midst of a generalized stress response. Several promising routes for understanding phenolic acid tolerance have been identified based upon these findings. These insights may be used to guide further engineering of model industrial organisms to better tolerate phenolic compounds in processed biomass.
Project description:Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) belong to an economically important group of Gram-positive microorganisms, whose main characteristic is the production of lactic acid by carbohydrates fermentation. Lactobacillus paraplantarum CRL 1905 is a LAB isolated from quinoa sourdoughs with biotechnological potential as a starter or probiotic. Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is an essential nutrient for most bacteria cell functions and it is involved in many regulatory processes. The aim of the project was to evaluate the influence of environmental Pi concentration in different physiological and molecular aspects of the CRL 1905 strain. Phenotypic and proteomic data provide new insights to understand the adaptations in several metabolic pathways that CRL 1905 experiments in response to differential Pi conditions.
Project description:Lactococcus lactis is the main bacterium used for food fermentation and is a candidate for probiotic development. In addition to fermentation growth, supplementation with heme in aerobic conditions activates a cytochrome oxidase, which promotes respiration metabolism. In contrast to fermentation in which cells consume energy to produce mainly lactic acid, respiration metabolism dramatically changes energy metabolism, such that massive amounts of acetic acid and acetoin are produced at the expense of lactic acid. Our goal was to investigate the metabolic changes that correlate with significantly improved growth and survival during respiration growth. Using transcriptional time course analyses, mutational analyses, and promoter reporter fusions, we uncover two main pathways that can explain the robust growth and stability of respiration cultures: The acetate pathway contributes to biomass yield in respiration, without affecting medium pH. The acetoin pathway allows cells to cope with internal acidification, which directly affects cell density and survival in stationary phase. Our results suggest that manipulation of these pathways could lead to fine tuning respiration growth, with improved yield and stability.
Project description:It was found that after OA treatment, compared with the CK group, the abundance of lactic acid bacteria in the intestinal flora of mice in the OA group increased, and the increase in the abundance of lactic acid bacteria made the gene Il10 upregulated, Il10 had a significant effect on tumor volume reduction and prolongation of mouse survival, and played a role through cytokine receptor interaction pathway.
Project description:Staphylococcus aureus is an important food poisoning bacterium. In food preservation, acidification is a well-known method. Permeant weak organic acids, like lactic and acetic acids, are known to be more effective against bacteria than inorganic strong acids (e.g., HCl). Growth experiments and metabolic and transcriptional analyses were used to determine the responses of a food pathogenic S. aureus strain exposed to lactic acid, acetic acid, and HCl at pH 4.5. Lactic and acetic acid stress induced a slower transcriptional response and large variations in growth patterns compared with the responses induced by HCl. In cultures acidified with lactic acid, the pH of the medium gradually increased to 7.5 during growth, while no such increase was observed for bacteria exposed to acetic acid or HCl. Staphylococcus aureus increased the pH in the medium mainly through accumulation of ammonium and the removal of acid groups, resulting in increased production of diacetyl (2,3-butanedione) and pyrazines. The results showed flexible and versatile responses of S. aureus to different types of acid stress. As measured by growth inhibition, permeant organic acid stress introduced severe stress compared with the stress caused by HCl. Cells exposed to lactic acid showed specific mechanisms of action in addition to sharing many of the mechanisms induced by HCl stress. Data is also available from http://bugs.sgul.ac.uk/E-BUGS-87