Comparative study of E. coli strains producing amino acids]

Transduction of the locus of stability to high threonine concentrations (Thrr) into E. coli str M1 and C600 resulted in enhancements of the amino acid production and retardation of the culture development. Besides the mutation caused increase of the specific activity of glutamate synthase, aspartate kinase and homoserine dehydrogenase. The cells of the mutant strains had poorly developed walls and were smaller than those of the parent strains.     

Comparative study of the antimutagenic activity of diphenols

Comparative study of the ability of three diphenols (pyrocathechol, resorcinol and hydroquinone) to inhibit the mutagenic activity of benzo(a)pyrene was carried out using the test for micronuclei account in mice polychromatic erythrocytes. It was suggested that the antimutagenic activity of diphenols used is mostly due to isomeric effect, i.e. the position of hydroxy-groups in molecules of diphenols.     

Collagen-like proteins in pathogenic E. coli strains

The genome sequences of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 strains show multiple open-reading frames with collagen-like sequences that are absent from the common laboratory strain K-12. These putative collagens are included in prophages embedded in O157:H7 genomes. These prophages carry numerous genes related to strain virulence and have been shown to be inducible and capable of disseminating virulence factors by horizontal gene transfer. We have cloned two collagen-like proteins from E. coli O157:H7 into a laboratory strain and analysed the structure and conformation of the recombinant proteins and several of their constituting domains by a variety of spectroscopic, biophysical, and electron microscopy techniques. We show that these molecules exhibit many of the characteristics of vertebrate collagens, including trimer formation and the presence of a collagen triple helical domain. They also contain a C-terminal trimerization domain, and a trimeric α-helical coiled-coil domain with an unusual amino acid sequence almost completely lacking leucine, valine or isoleucine residues. Intriguingly, these molecules show high thermal stability, with the collagen domain being more stable than those of vertebrate fibrillar collagens, which are much longer and post-translationally modified. Under the electron microscope, collagen-like proteins from E. coli O157:H7 show a dumbbell shape, with two globular domains joined by a hinged stalk. This morphology is consistent with their likely role as trimeric phage side-tail proteins that participate in the attachment of phage particles to E. coli target cells, either directly or through assembly with other phage tail proteins. Thus, collagen-like proteins in enterohaemorrhagic E. coli genomes may have a direct role in the dissemination of virulence-related genes through infection of harmless strains by induced bacteriophages.     

Amination in E. coli strains effectively producing threonine

The effect of the mutation of threonine and homoserine resistance (thrr) on the activity of the enzymes catalysing the biosynthesis of glutamic acid, glutamate synthase (EC 1.4.1.13) and glutamate dehydrogenase (EC 1.4.1.4), and on the productivity of a threonine-producing E. coli strain obtained by gene engineering was being studied. The resistance to threonine was found to correlate well with the increasing activities of the abovementioned enzymes and with a higher productivity of the E. coli strain.     

Efficient production of lycopene by engineered E. coli strains harboring different types of plasmids

Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering - The lycopene biosynthetic genes crtE, crtB, and crtI from Deinococcus wulumuqiensis R12 were integrated into three different vector backbones—pET28a,...     

Comparative study of the N-terminal hydrophilic region in Streptomyces lividans and E. coli FtsY

Streptomyces lividans FtsY (SlFtsY) was cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Analysis of the amino acid (aa) sequence showed a concentration of hydrophilic aa's in the N-terminal half region of SlFtsY as observed in that of E. coli FtsY (EcFtsY). However, the length of the hydrophilic region was shorter in SlFtsY than in EcFtsY. Overexpression of SlFtsY in E. coli resulted in growth suppression as in the case of the overexpression of EcFtsY, while growth suppression as a result of the overexpression of the C-terminal half region of SlFtsY was limited. This result suggests that the N-terminal hydrophilic region of SlFtsY, regardless of its short length, would behave like its counterpart region of EcFtsY in E. coli.     

Sensitivity of different E. coli and Salmonella strains in mutagenicity testing calculated on the basis of selected literature

Two microbial screening test systems for gene (point) mutations, the Salmonella typhimurium assay (TA1535, TA1537, TA1538, TA98 and TA100) and the Escherichia coli WP2 reverse-mutation system (WP2, WP2uvrA, WP2pKM101 and WP2uvrApKM101), were compared with regard to sensitivity toward a broad spectrum of compounds that cause base-pair or frameshift mutations and that have known carcinogenic qualities. Based on available published literature we found that all 44 carcinogens and 9 non-carcinogens examined in both test systems also met with criteria for data acceptance drawn up by us. The results obtained are: firstly, that the Salmonella assay is decidedly better validated than the E. coli WP2 test; and secondly, that the E. coli test system sensitivity (91%) is fully on a par with the sensitivity of the Salmonella assay (72%). This last is in divergence from earlier reports, e.g. Brusick et al. (1980), and this difference must be ascribed to the new plasmid-containing strains. The many compounds not tested in the E. coli department result in fewer false negatives in the E. coli test system and their omission constitutes a bias in favour of the E. coli assay. By eliminating compounds that are negative in Salmonella and dropped from the WP2 analysis owing to insufficient data, the sensitivity of the Salmonella system is raised to 84% as compared with 91% for the WP2 assay. The results further indicate that some of the tester strains are superfluous, and show an exceedingly sensitive test can be performed by combining the best tester strains from the two test systems.     

Comparative evaluation of Escherichia coli strains as markers for the study of bacteriophages

The count of coliphages in polluted waters was found to be dependent on many experimental factors. The host-strain used for their enumeration is among the most important. In this paper we report a comparative investigation on the variability of counts of coliphages in sewage as a result of variations in host-strains of Escherichia coli and in methodologies. Two methods were used for enumerating them: the M.P.N. and the direct count. E. coli C, B1, Hfr and E36 consistently produced more plaques than any other host tested.     

Plasmids of antibiotic-resistant clinical strains of E. coli]

Analysis of 53 antibiotic resistant clinical strains of E. coli isolated from patients with various purulent inflammatory diseases is presented. According to the data of the electrophoretic study 83 per cent of them carried 2 to 6 plasmids. Thirteen of them carried the conjugation R-factor. The antibiotic resistance in the other strains was due to the non-conjugation plasmids.