1887

Abstract

Poly--glutamic acid (-PGA) is an extracellular polymer produced by various strains of . Ιt was first described as the component of the capsule in , where it plays a relevant role in virulence. -PGA is also a distinctive component of ‘natto’, a traditional Japanese food consisting of soybean fermented by (natto). Domesticated . strains do not synthesize -PGA although they possess the functional biosynthetic operon. In the present work we explore the correlation between the genetic determinants, and , which allow a derivative of the domestic strain JH642 to display a mucoid colony morphology on LB agar plates due to the production of -PGA. Full activation of the operon requires the co-presence of SwrAA and the phosphorylated form of DegU (DegU∼P). The presence of either DegU∼P or SwrAA alone has only marginal effects on operon transcription and -PGA production. Although SwrAA was identified as necessary for swarming and full swimming motility together with DegU, we show that motility is not involved in -PGA production. Activation of -PGA synthesis is therefore a motility-independent phenotype in which SwrAA and DegU∼P display a cooperative effect.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.026435-0
2009-07-01
2024-04-27
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/micro/155/7/2282.html?itemId=/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.026435-0&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Amati G., Bisicchia P., Galizzi A. 2004; DegU-P represses expression of the motility fla-che operon in Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 186:6003–6014
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Amory A., Kunst F., Aubert E., Klier A., Rapoport G. 1987; Characterization of the sacQ genes from Bacillus licheniformis and Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 169:324–333
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Arnaud M., Chastanet A., Débarbouillé M. 2004; New vector for efficient allelic replacement in naturally nontransformable, low-GC-content, gram-positive bacteria. Appl Environ Microbiol 70:6887–6891
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Barilla D., Caramori T., Galizzi A. 1994; Coupling of flagellin gene transcription to flagellar assembly in Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 176:4558–4564
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Calvio C., Celandroni F., Ghelardi E., Amati G., Salvetti S., Ceciliani F., Galizzi A., Senesi S. 2005; Swarming differentiation and swimming motility in Bacillus subtilis are controlled by swrA, a newly identified dicistronic operon. J Bacteriol 187:5356–5366
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Calvio C., Osera C., Amati G., Galizzi A. 2008; Autoregulation of swrAA and motility in Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 190:5720–5728
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Candela T., Fouet A. 2006; Poly-gamma-glutamate in bacteria. Mol Microbiol 60:1091–1098
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Dahl M. K., Msadek T., Kunst F., Rapoport G. 1992; The phosphorylation state of the DegU response regulator acts as a molecular switch allowing either degradative enzyme synthesis or expression of genetic competence in Bacillus subtilis . J Biol Chem 267:14509–14514
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Gilman M. Z., Chamberlin M. J. 1983; Developmental and genetic regulation of Bacillus subtilis genes transcribed by σ 28-RNA polymerase. Cell 35:285–293
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Kearns D. B., Losick R. 2005; Cell population heterogeneity during growth of Bacillus subtilis . Genes Dev 19:3083–3094
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Kearns D. B., Chu F., Rudner R., Losick R. 2004; Genes governing swarming in Bacillus subtilis and evidence for a phase variation mechanism controlling surface motility. Mol Microbiol 52:357–369
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Kobayashi K. 2007; Gradual activation of the response regulator DegU controls serial expression of genes for flagellum formation and biofilm formation in Bacillus subtilis . Mol Microbiol 66:395–409
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Miller J. H. 1972 Experiments in Molecular Genetics Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory;
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Msadek T., Kunst F., Henner D., Klier A., Rapoport G., Dedonder R. 1990; Signal transduction pathway controlling synthesis of a class of degradative enzymes in Bacillus subtilis: expression of the regulatory genes and analysis of mutations in degS and degU . J Bacteriol 172:824–834
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Schumann W., Ehrlich S. D., Ogasawara N. 2001 Functional Analysis of Bacterial Genes: a Practical Manual Chichester: Wiley;
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Shih I.-L., Van Y.-T. 2001; The production of poly-(gamma-glutamic acid) from microorganisms and its various applications. Bioresour Technol 79:207–225
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Stanley N. R., Lazazzera B. A. 2005; Defining the genetic differences between wild and domestic strains of Bacillus subtilis that affect poly- γ-dl-glutamic acid production and biofilm formation. Mol Microbiol 57:1143–1158
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Suzuki T., Tahara Y. 2003; Characterization of the Bacillus subtilis ywtD gene, whose product is involved in γ-polyglutamic acid degradation. J Bacteriol 185:2379–2382
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Tanaka T., Kawata M., Mukai K. 1991; Altered phosphorylation of Bacillus subtilis DegU caused by single amino acid changes in DegS. J Bacteriol 173:5507–5515
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Urushibata Y., Tokuyama S., Tahara Y. 2002; Difference in transcription levels of cap genes for γ-polyglutamic acid production between Bacillus subtilis IFO 16449 and Marburg 168. J Biosci Bioeng 93:252–254
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Veening J. W., Igoshin O. A., Eijlander R. T., Nijland R., Hamoen L. W., Kuipers O. P. 2008a; Transient heterogeneity in extracellular protease production by Bacillus subtilis . Mol Syst Biol 4:184
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Veening J. W., Smits W. K., Kuipers O. P. 2008b; Bistability, epigenetics, and bet-hedging in bacteria. Annu Rev Microbiol 62:193–210
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Verhamme D. T., Kiley T. B., Stanley-Wall N. R. 2007; DegU co-ordinates multicellular behaviour exhibited by Bacillus subtilis . Mol Microbiol 65:554–568
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Verhamme D. T., Murray E. J., Stanley-Wall N. R. 2009; DegU and Spo0A jointly control transcription of two loci required for complex colony development by Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 191:100–108
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Yang M., Ferrari E., Chen E., Henner D. J. 1986; Identification of the pleiotropic sacQ gene of Bacillus subtilis . J Bacteriol 166:113–119
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.026435-0
Loading
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.026435-0
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error