Project description:In this report, we have developed a rapid oligonucleotide microarray detection technique to identify the most common ten Legionella spp.. The sensitivity of the detection was at 1.0 ng with genomic DNA or 13 CFU/100 mL with Legionella cultures. The microarray detected seven air conditioner-condensed water samples with 100% accuracy, validating the technique as a promising method for applications in basic microbiology, clinical diagnosis, food safety, and epidemiological surveillance. The phylogenetic study based on the ITS has also revealed interestingly that the non-pathogenic L. fairfieldensis is the closest to L. pneumophila than the nine other pathogenic Legionella spp..
Project description:Salmonella can survive for long periods under extreme desiccation conditions. This stress response poses a risk for food safety, but relatively little is known about the molecular and cellular regulation of this adaptation mechanism. To determine the genetic components involved in Salmonella’s cellular response to desiccation, we performed a global transcriptomic analysis comparing Salmonella Typhimurium cells equilibrated to low water activity (aw 0.11) and cells equilibrated to high water activity (aw 1.0). The analysis revealed that 719 genes were differentially regulated between the two conditions, of which 290 genes were up-regulated at aw 0.11. Most of these genes were involved in metabolic pathways, transporter regulation, DNA replication/repair, transcription and translation, and, more importantly, virulence genes.
Project description:Mitigation of N2O-emissions from soils is needed to reduce climate forcing by food production. Inoculating soils with N2O-reducing bacteria would be effective, but costly and impractical as a standalone operation. Here we demonstrate that digestates obtained after biogas production may provide a low-cost and widely applicable solution. Firstly, we show that indigenous N2O-reducing bacteria in digestates grow to high levels during anaerobic enrichment under N2O. Gas kinetics and meta-omic analysis show that the N2O respiring organisms, recovered as metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) grow by harvesting fermentation intermediates of the methanogenic consortium. Three digestate-derived denitrifying bacteria were obtained through isolation, one of which matched the recovered MAG of a dominant Dechloromonas-affiliated N2O reducer. While the identified N2O-reducers encoded genes required for a full denitrification pathway and could thus both produce and sequester N2O, their regulatory traits predicted that they act as N2O-sinks in the current system. Secondly, moving towards practical application, we show that these isolates grow by aerobic respiration in digestates, and that fertilization with these enriched digestates reduces N2O emissions. This shows that the ongoing implementation of biogas production in agriculture opens a new avenue for cheap and effective reduction of N2O emissions from food production.
Project description:Vitamin C is an essential water-soluble vitamin in humans, primates and a few other mammals, and is widely used in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics, and feed industries for its antioxidant capacity. To achieve large-scale industrial production, the precursor of Vc, 2-keto-L-gulonic acid is mainly produced using a classic two-step fermentation process. In the second step of the two-step fermentation process, the microbial consortium of Ketogulonicigenium vulgare and Bacillus strains is used to achieve 2-KLG production. However, the relationship between the two strains are still unclear.The purpose of our study was to determine cell-cell communication in a microbial consortium consisting of K. vulgare and Bacillus pumilus by iTRAQ-based proteomics.