Programmed Death in Bacteria

Programmed cell death (PCD) in bacteria plays an important role in developmental processes, such as lysis of the mother cell during sporulation of Bacillus subtilis and lysis of vegetative cells in fruiting body formation of Myxococcus xanthus. The signal transduction pathway leading to autolysis of the mother cell includes the terminal sporulation sigma factor Eς^K, which induces the synthesis of autolysins CwlC and CwlH. An activator of autolysin in this and other PCD processes is yet to be identified. Autolysis plays a role in genetic exchange in Streptococcus pneumoniae, and the gene for the major autolysin, lytA, is located in the same operon with recA. DNA from lysed cells is picked up by their neighbors and recombined into the chromosome by RecA. LytA requires an unknown activator controlled by a sensory kinase, VncS. Deletion of vncS inhibits autolysis and also decreases killing by unrelated antibiotics. This observation suggests that PCD in bacteria serves to eliminate damaged cells, similar to apoptosis of defective cells in metazoa. The presence of genes affecting survival without changing growth sensitivity to antibiotics (vncS, lytA, hipAB, sulA, and mar) indicates that bacteria are able to control their fate. Elimination of defective cells could limit the spread of a viral infection and donate nutrients to healthy kin cells. An altruistic suicide would be challenged by the appearance of asocial mutants without PCD and by the possibility of maladaptive total suicide in response to a uniformly present lethal factor or nutrient depletion. It is proposed that a low rate of mutation serves to decrease the probability that asocial mutants without PCD will take over the population. It is suggested that PCD is disabled in persistors, rare cells that are resistant to killing, to ensure population survival. It is suggested that lack of nutrients leads to the stringent response that suppresses PCD, producing a state of tolerance to antibiotics, allowing cells to discriminate between nutrient deprivation and unrepairable damage. High levels of persistors are apparently responsible for the extraordinary survival properties of bacterial biofilms, and genes affecting persistence appear to be promising targets for development of drugs aimed at eradicating recalcitrant infections. PCD in unicellular eukaryotes is also considered, including aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Apoptosis-like elimination of defective cells in S. cerevisiae and protozoa suggests that all unicellular life forms evolved altruistic programmed death that serves a variety of useful functions.     

细菌的细胞程序性死亡

细胞凋亡 (ａｐｏｐｔｏｓｉｓ)也称为细胞程序性死亡 (ｐｒｏｇｒａｍｍｅｄｃｅｌｌｄｅａｔｈ ,ＰＣＤ) ,是由细胞自身的程序性自杀机制激活的细胞死亡现象。在多细胞真核生物中 ,程序性的细胞死亡是由细胞表面的死亡受体介导 ,通过一系列的半胱氨酸蛋白酶 (ｃａｓｐａｓｅｓ)作用而启动[1] ,维系个体结构稳定、功能平衡和生长发育所必需的基本生物学过程。一般存在于个体的发育过程中 ,导致细胞功能和形态学上的改变 ,如蛋白质的水解、ＤＮＡ和ＲＮＡ的降解、细胞的收缩 ,以及细胞碎裂形成凋亡小体 (ａｐｏｐｔｏｔｉｃｂｏｄｉｅｓ)等 …     

基于二次正交旋转回归优化大豆根内拮抗菌AF-67发酵工艺

应用二次正交旋转回归设计,研究培养基关键影响的四因子对大豆根腐生防菌AF-67发酵菌液浓度的影响.优化发酵培养基各成分的最佳配比为:牛肉浸膏1%,蛋白胨3.5%,可溶性淀粉1.8%,葡萄糖1%,发酵24h后稀释10倍工作液的实际光密度值A_(620)为0.743,较LB增殖培养液提高了42%.肯定了模型的可靠性和应用的有效性.     

正交实验优选光合细菌混合菌群产氢的最佳条件

对光合细菌混合菌群产氢影响因子进行了实验研究。通过单因素实验和正交实验, 系统考察了碳源、氮源、碳源浓度、氮源浓度、初始pH值、光照方式、接种量等因素对产氢量的影响, 实验得出最佳工艺条件为: 采用3号菌群, 碳源为葡萄糖, 碳源浓度为3 g/L, 氮源为尿素, 氮源浓度为9 g/L, 接种量为10%, pH值为8.5, 光照方式为12 h光照-12 h黑暗交替光照, 培养温度为30°C。菌种、碳源、碳源浓度、氮源是影响产氢量的重要因素。     

Metabolic Injury in Frozen Bacteria

S ummary : Aerobacter aerogenes populations, partly killed by freezing and thawing, usually showed more viable bacteria when plated on a rich medium than on a poor one. This 'metabolic injury' was not due to osmotic sensitivity or to toxic materials in the agar. Freezing and thawing was not significantly mutagenic and mutation to nutritional exigence did not account for the phenomenon. The survivors of freezing and thawing showed long lag phases in the recovery media, during which lag periods further mortality occurred.     

代谢途径的进化

生物的新陈代谢是通过一系列的代谢途径来实现的.这些调节精妙、相瓦协作的代谢途径是如何进化形成的一直是一个引人入胜的重要问题.自1945年有关该问题的第一个假说--"逆向进化假说"提出以来,迄今已发展出七种假说,包括"逆向进化假说"、"半酶理论"、"向前发展模型"、"酶的招募假说"、"多功能酶特化假说"、"整个代谢途径的复制假说"和"从头创造假说".其中最受关注的是"逆向进化假说"和"酶的招募假说",而最近提出的"多功能酶特化假说"由于有较好的理论基础和实验证据支持,也逐渐引起人们的关注.本文对这些假说逐一作了概述,并结合作者的相关研究工作,对该领域的研究现状和发展趋势进行了分析讨论和展望.     

YihE Kinase Is a Central Regulator of Programmed Cell Death in Bacteria

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Highlights? YihE protein kinase is a central regulator of programmed cell death in bacteria ? YihE antagonizes the MazEF toxin-antitoxin module to suppress stress-mediated death ? YihE links MazF, Cpx, and a cascade of ROS into a unified stress-response scheme ? YihE is a potential target of small-molecule enhancers of antimicrobial lethality     

Metabolic Features of Methane- and Methanol-Utilizing Bacteria

Investigations of a wide range of methane- and methanol-utilizers showed a striking versatility of their metabolism dependent on the genotype and growth conditions. A correlation between pathways of carbon and nitrogen metabolism was found. It was most stringent in obligate methane-utilizers: the hexulosephosphate pathway bacteria assimilated NH₃ by the reductive amination of α-ketoglutarate or pyruvate whereas the serine pathway bacteria used the glutamate cycle (glutamine synthetase + glutamate-oxoglutarate aminotransferase). Multiple enzymic lesions were found in central metabolism of obligate methylotrophs, i.e. the absence of the enzymes of glycolytic and pentosephosphate pathways, gluconeogenesis, citric acid cycle and glyoxylate shunt. These metabolic blocks were not so profound and could be compensated in restricted and facultative methylotrophs during heterotrophic growth. The average levels of exogenous CO₂ fixation in methylotrophic bacteria with the hexulosephosphate, serine and ribulosebisphosphate pathways were found to be 10, 30 and 80% of their total cell carbon, respectively. These results served as a basis for biotechnological applications of metabolic potential of methylotrophs (production of biomass, polysaccharides and enzymes as well as for microbiological treatment of industrial waters containing toxic C₁- and C_n-compounds).     

Molecular Evolution of Threonine Dehydratase in Bacteria

Threonine dehydratase converts L-threonine to 2-ketobutyrate. Several threonine dehydratases exist in bacteria, but their origins and evolutionary pathway are unknown. Here we analyzed all the available threonine dehydratases in bacteria and proposed an evolutionary pathway leading to the genes encoding three different threonine dehydratases CTD, BTD1 and BTD2. The ancestral threonine dehydratase might contain only a catalytic domain, but one or two ACT-like subdomains were fused during the evolution, resulting BTD1 and BTD2, respectively. Horizontal gene transfer, gene fusion, gene duplication, and gene deletion may occur during the evolution of this enzyme. The results are important for understanding the functions of various threonine dehydratases found in bacteria.     

Global Metabolic Reconstruction and Metabolic Gene Evolution in the Cattle Genome

The sequence of cattle genome provided a valuable opportunity to systematically link genetic and metabolic traits of cattle. The objectives of this study were 1) to reconstruct genome-scale cattle-specific metabolic pathways based on the most recent and updated cattle genome build and 2) to identify duplicated metabolic genes in the cattle genome for better understanding of metabolic adaptations in cattle. A bioinformatic pipeline of an organism for amalgamating genomic annotations from multiple sources was updated. Using this, an amalgamated cattle genome database based on UMD_3.1, was created. The amalgamated cattle genome database is composed of a total of 33,292 genes: 19,123 consensus genes between NCBI and Ensembl databases, 8,410 and 5,493 genes only found in NCBI or Ensembl, respectively, and 266 genes from NCBI scaffolds. A metabolic reconstruction of the cattle genome and cattle pathway genome database (PGDB) was also developed using Pathway Tools, followed by an intensive manual curation. The manual curation filled or revised 68 pathway holes, deleted 36 metabolic pathways, and added 23 metabolic pathways. Consequently, the curated cattle PGDB contains 304 metabolic pathways, 2,460 reactions including 2,371 enzymatic reactions, and 4,012 enzymes. Furthermore, this study identified eight duplicated genes in 12 metabolic pathways in the cattle genome compared to human and mouse. Some of these duplicated genes are related with specific hormone biosynthesis and detoxifications. The updated genome-scale metabolic reconstruction is a useful tool for understanding biology and metabolic characteristics in cattle. There has been significant improvements in the quality of cattle genome annotations and the MetaCyc database. The duplicated metabolic genes in the cattle genome compared to human and mouse implies evolutionary changes in the cattle genome and provides a useful information for further research on understanding metabolic adaptations of cattle.     

光合细菌混合培养条件的优化

对沼泽红假单胞菌(Rhodopseudomonas palustris,PL1)和球形红假单胞菌(Rhodopseuelonmnas spheroids,PL2)混合培养条件进行了优化研究。结果表明,混合培养的最适接种量为6%,最适初始pH为7.5,低氧气浓度,180r/min振荡10min/d。     

Metabolic Pathways in Methanococcus jannaschii and Other Methanogenic Bacteria

Eleven strains of methanogenic bacteria were divided into two groups on the basis of the directionality (oxidative or reductive) of their citric acid pathways. These pathways were readily identified for most methanogens from the patterns of carbon atom labeling in glutamate, following growth in the presence of [2-¹³C]acetate. All used noncyclic pathways, but members of the family Methanosarcinaceae were the only methanogens found to use the oxidative direction. Methanococcus jannaschii failed to incorporate carbon from acetate despite transmembrane equilibration comparable to other weak acids. This organism was devoid of detectable activities of the acetate-incorporating enzymes acetyl coenzyme A synthetase, acetate kinase, and phosphotransacetylase. However, incorporation of [1-¹³C]-, [2-¹³C]-, or [3-¹³C]pyruvate during the growth of M. jannaschii was possible and resulted in labeling patterns indicative of a noncyclic citric acid pathway operating in the reductive direction to synthesize amino acids. Carbohydrates were labeled consistent with glucogenesis from pyruvate. Leucine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, lysine, formate, glycerol, and mevalonate were incorporated when supplied to the growth medium. Lysine was preferentially incorporated into the lipid fraction, suggesting a role as a phytanyl chain precursor.     

The Evolution of Fungal Metabolic Pathways

Fungi contain a remarkable range of metabolic pathways, sometimes encoded by gene clusters, enabling them to digest most organic matter and synthesize an array of potent small molecules. Although metabolism is fundamental to the fungal lifestyle, we still know little about how major evolutionary processes, such as gene duplication (GD) and horizontal gene transfer (HGT), have interacted with clustered and non-clustered fungal metabolic pathways to give rise to this metabolic versatility. We examined the synteny and evolutionary history of 247,202 fungal genes encoding enzymes that catalyze 875 distinct metabolic reactions from 130 pathways in 208 diverse genomes. We found that gene clustering varied greatly with respect to metabolic category and lineage; for example, clustered genes in Saccharomycotina yeasts were overrepresented in nucleotide metabolism, whereas clustered genes in Pezizomycotina were more common in lipid and amino acid metabolism. The effects of both GD and HGT were more pronounced in clustered genes than in their non-clustered counterparts and were differentially distributed across fungal lineages; specifically, GD, which was an order of magnitude more abundant than HGT, was most frequently observed in Agaricomycetes, whereas HGT was much more prevalent in Pezizomycotina. The effect of HGT in some Pezizomycotina was particularly strong; for example, we identified 111 HGT events associated with the 15 Aspergillus genomes, which sharply contrasts with the 60 HGT events detected for the 48 genomes from the entire Saccharomycotina subphylum. Finally, the impact of GD within a metabolic category was typically consistent across all fungal lineages, whereas the impact of HGT was variable. These results indicate that GD is the dominant process underlying fungal metabolic diversity, whereas HGT is episodic and acts in a category- or lineage-specific manner. Both processes have a greater impact on clustered genes, suggesting that metabolic gene clusters represent hotspots for the generation of fungal metabolic diversity.     

反义技术应用在细菌代谢调控中的研究进展

随着基因工程技术的蓬勃发展和代谢调控研究的深入,反义技术作为一种温和调控的基因工程技术,开始向世人展示其无穷的魅力.与基因敲除等功能缺失性研究方法相比,反义技术具有投入少、周期短、操作简单等优点,受到广泛的关注,成为细菌代谢调控的有力工具.以下对反义RNA、反义寡核苷酸,核酶这几种反义技术在细菌代谢工程操作中的研究进展及存在的问题进行了概述.     

降解畜禽废物光合细菌的筛选及其代谢特性

目的:从自然界中分离光合细菌,对其代谢氮磷硫的特性进行初步研究,为其在畜禽废物净化等应用奠定基础.方法:采用厌氧培养法富集、半固体试管法和双层平板法选择性筛选光合细菌,得到了3株光合细菌分别记为psb -L、psb -H和psb -S.在富集培养基中分别添加KH2 PO4、Na2S和以KNO3作唯一无机氮源进行培养,研究试验菌株对氮、磷、硫化合物的代谢能力.结果:在设计的培养基中,3株光合细菌psb -L、psb -H和psb -S都能生长;经培养4d后对磷酸盐的代谢率分别为15.80％、13.49％和13.01％;经培养6d后对硫化物的代谢率分别为46.58％、32.88％和39.18％;培养17d后对硝酸盐的代谢率分别达到96.38％、89.31％和90.04％;为进一步应用于畜禽废物发酵提供参考依据.     

Spontaneous Reaction Silencing in Metabolic Optimization

Metabolic reactions of single-cell organisms are routinely observed to become dispensable or even incapable of carrying activity under certain circumstances. Yet, the mechanisms as well as the range of conditions and phenotypes associated with this behavior remain very poorly understood. Here we predict computationally and analytically that any organism evolving to maximize growth rate, ATP production, or any other linear function of metabolic fluxes tends to significantly reduce the number of active metabolic reactions compared to typical nonoptimal states. The reduced number appears to be constant across the microbial species studied and just slightly larger than the minimum number required for the organism to grow at all. We show that this massive spontaneous reaction silencing is triggered by the irreversibility of a large fraction of the metabolic reactions and propagates through the network as a cascade of inactivity. Our results help explain existing experimental data on intracellular flux measurements and the usage of latent pathways, shedding new light on microbial evolution, robustness, and versatility for the execution of specific biochemical tasks. In particular, the identification of optimal reaction activity provides rigorous ground for an intriguing knockout-based method recently proposed for the synthetic recovery of metabolic function.     

水稻RAPD反应体系的正交优化

以焦旱1号总DNA为材料,首先对影响RAPD-PCR反应的模板DNA、Mg~(2+)、dNTP、引物和Taq DNA聚合酶浓度等因素进行了初步优化,分析了各因素对RAPD-PCR扩增结果的影响.在此基础上对影响RAPD-PCR反应的Mg~(2+)、dNTP、引物和Taq DNA聚合酶浓度等4个主要因素进行正交优化,研究结果表明:在25 μl RAPD-PCR反应体系中,模板DNA 20 ng;Mg~(2+)浓度1.5mmol/L;dNTP的浓度0.2mmol/L;引物量15 pmol;Taq DNA聚合酶1.0 U.在此最佳条件下,利用引物B8对18个北方粳稻品种进行了成功的扩增.     

四数獐牙菜ISSR-PCR反应体系的正交优化

采用正交试验与单因素设计相结合的方法,对四数獐牙菜ISSR-PCR反应体系中的4种主要因素(Mg2+、TaqDNA聚合酶、dNTP及引物)进行优化筛选,PCR结果用统计软件SPSS16.0分析。结果显示,Mg2+、TaqDNA聚合酶、dNTP这3因素的不同水平对PCR反应结果都有显著影响,其中Mg2+的浓度影响最大。筛选出各反应因素的最佳水平,建立四数獐牙菜ISSR-PCR反应的最佳体系(25μL)为3.0 mmol/L Mg2+,250μmol/L dNTP,0.6μmol/L引物,1UTaqDNA聚合酶,40 ngDNA,2.5μL10×buffer。这一体系的建立为今后利用ISSR技术进行四数獐牙菜遗传多样性分析以及物种保护奠定了技术基础。     

正交设计优化东亚砂藓DDRT-PCR反应体系

利用正交实验设计L25（5^6）对东亚砂藓（Racomitrium japonicum）DDRT—PCR反应体系的6因素（Mg^2＋、dNTP、锚定引物、随机引物、模板DNA、Taq酶）在5个水平上进行优化实验。结果筛选出各反应因素的最佳体系（20μL）为：Mg^2＋2．25mmol／L、dNTP0．4mmol／L、锚定引物1．0μmol／L、随机引物0．7μmol／L、模板DNA1．6μL、Taq酶2．5U。对东亚砂藓DDRT—PCR最佳反应体系进行梯度PCR引物退火温度筛选,得到的最佳退火温度为45．4℃。该优化体系的建立,为进一步进行东亚砂藓抗旱基因的筛选与克隆等一系列分子研究提供了重要参考依据。     

Tolerance and Metabolic Response of Acetogenic Bacteria toward Oxygen

The acetogens Sporomusa silvacetica, Moorella thermoacetica, Clostridium magnum, Acetobacterium woodii, and Thermoanaerobacter kivui (i) grew in both semisolid and liquid cultivation media containing O₂ and (ii) consumed small amounts of O₂. Low concentrations of O₂ caused a lag phase in growth but did not alter the ability of these acetogens to synthesize acetate via the acetyl coenzyme A pathway. Cell extracts of S. silvacetica, M. thermoacetica, and C. magnum contained peroxidase and NADH oxidase activities; catalase and superoxide dismutase activities were not detected.