Metabolomics,Unknown,Transcriptomics,Genomics,Proteomics

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Contribution of cell-bound and cell-free cellulosomal versus non-cellulosomal systems in deconstruction of cellulosic biomass by Clostridium thermocellum

ABSTRACT: The high cellulose digestion capability of the anaerobic thermophilic bacterium, Clostridium thermocellum, can be attributed to its efficient glycoside hydrolase system, consisting of both a free-enzyme system and a cellulosomal system, wherein carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) are organized by primary and secondary scaffoldin proteins into large protein complexes bound to the bacterial cell wall. Using an integrated series of experiments encompassing polysaccharide depolymerization assays, direct biochemical analyses and transcriptomics, we show herein that, in addition to cell-bound cellulosomes and M-bM-^@M-^\freeM-bM-^@M-^] enzymes, C. thermocellum naturally employs a system of cell-free cellulosomes that are not designed to be tethered to the cell and can diffuse away to attack polysaccharide substrates at some distance from the cell. By characterizing the cells and the secretomes of a series of mutants in which genes for either individual scaffoldins or combinations thereof are deleted, we demonstrate that the cellulosome is far more important in cellulose degradation than are the free enzymes, and that the primary scaffoldin CipA is much more important for the action of the cellulosomes than is the collective contribution of the secondary scaffoldins. Extensive transcriptomics analyses confirm the above results and extend the study to the effects of scaffoldin deletions on the organism as a whole. To gain insights into the transcriptome profiles of C. thermocellum strains when various cellulosomal scaffoldin genes were deleted. High quality RNA was extracted from C. thermocellum grown on cellulose. Transcriptome profiles were obtained at one time point during actively growing fermentations, mid exponential phase when 50% of the substrate had been consumed.

ORGANISM(S): Ruminiclostridium thermocellum DSM 1313

SUBMITTER: Charlotte Wilson

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-63883 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress

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Project description:Clostridium thermocellum is a leading candidate organism for implementing a consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) strategy for biofuel production due to its native ability to rapidly consume cellulose and its existing ethanol production pathway. C. thermocellum converts cellulose and cellobiose to lactate, formate, acetate, H2, ethanol, amino acids, and other products. Elimination of the pathways leading to products such as H2 could redirect carbon flux towards ethanol production. Rather than delete each hydrogenase individually, we targeted a hydrogenase maturase gene (hydG), which is involved in converting the three [FeFe] hydrogenase apoenzymes into holoenzymes by assembling the active site. This functionally inactivated all three Fe-Fe hydrogenases simultaneously, as they were unable to make active enzymes. In the ∆hydG mutant, the [NiFe] hydrogenase-encoding ech was also deleted to obtain a mutant that functionally lacks all hydrogenase. The ethanol yield increased nearly 2-fold in ∆hydG∆ech compared to wild type, and H2 production was below the detection limit. Interestingly, ∆hydG and ∆hydG∆ech exhibited improved growth in the presence of acetate in the medium. Transcriptomic and proteomic analysis reveal that genes related to sulfate transport and metabolism were up-regulated in the presence of added acetate in ∆hydG, resulting in altered sulfur metabolism. Further genomic analysis of this strain revealed a mutation in the bi-functional alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase adhE gene, resulting in a strain with both NADH- and NADPH-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase activities, whereas the wild type strain can only utilize NADH. This is the exact same adhE mutation found in ethanol-tolerant C. thermocellum strain E50C, but ∆hydG∆ech is not more ethanol tolerant than the wild type. Targeting protein post-translational modification is a promising new approach to target multiple enzymes simultaneously for metabolic engineering. A seventeen array study using total RNA recovered from fermentation cultures of three strains (parental, ∆hydG and ∆hydG∆ech) of Clostridium thermocellum DSM1313. Cells were harvested at an OD 0.4-0.5 from cultures grown in the presence of additional 5mM acetate and compared to untreated controls. At least two biological replicates were performed for each treatment and control condition.

Project description:The thermophilic anaerobe Clostridium thermocellum is a candidate consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) biocatalyst for cellulosic ethanol production. It expresses enzymes for both cellulose solubilization and its fermentation to produce lignocellulosic ethanol. To gain insights into the C. thermocellum genes, using an updated version of the C. thermocellum ATCC 27405 genome annotation, that are required for specific growth on the cellulosic feedstocks of either pretreated switchgrass or Populus, duplicate fermentations were conducted with a 5 g/L solid substrate loading. High quality RNA was extracted using a method we report for C. thermocellum grown on solid substrates. Transcriptome profiles were obtained at two time points during actively growing fermentations (12 h and 37 h post inoculation). A comparison of two transcriptomic analytical techniques, microarray and RNAseq, was performed and the data analyzed for statistical significance. When thresholds for genes passing significance of FDR>0.05 were applied, microarray (2351 genes) had a greater number of significant genes relative to RNA-seq (280 genes when normalized by KDMM). When a 2-fold difference in expression threshold was applied, seventy-three genes were significantly differentially expressed in common between the two techniques. We identified genes differentially expressed when C. thermocellum ATC 27405 was grown on the two biomass substrates, with two putative efflux/transport systems highly differentially regulated (>5-fold). This study has revealed consistency between these two transcriptomics analytical platforms that gives confidence in our switch from the DNA microarray platform to an RNAseq based platform for routine transcriptomics analyses. To gain insights into the C. thermocellum genes, using an updated version of the C. thermocellum ATCC 27405 genome annotation, that are required for specific growth on the cellulosic feedstocks of either pretreated switchgrass or Populus, duplicate fermentations were conducted with a 5 g/L solid substrate loading. High quality RNA was extracted using a method we report for C. thermocellum grown on solid substrates. Transcriptome profiles were obtained at two time points during actively growing fermentations (12 h and 37 h post inoculation). A comparison of two transcriptomic analytical techniques, microarray and RNAseq, was performed and the data analyzed for statistical significance.

Project description:Clostridium thermocellum is a Gram-positive, anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium that ferments cellulose into ethanol. It is a candidate industrial consolidated bioprocess (CBP) biocatalyst for lignocellulosic bioethanol production. However, C. thermocellum is relatively sensitive to ethanol compared to yeast. Previous studies have investigated the membrane and protein composition of wild-type and ethanol tolerant strains, but relatively little is known about the genome changes associated with the ethanol tolerant C. thermocellum strain. In this study, C. thermocellum cultures were grown to mid-exponential phase and then either shocked with the supplementation of ethanol to a final concentration of 3.95 g/L (equal to 0.5% [v/v]) or were untreated. Samples were taken pre-shock and 2, 12, 30, 60, 120, 240 min post-shock for multiple systems biology analyses. The addition of ethanol dramatically reduced the C. thermocellum growth and the final cell density was approximately half of the control fermentations, with concomitant reductions in substrate consumption in the treated cultures. The response of C. thermocellum to ethanol was dynamic and involved more than six hundred genes that were significantly and differentially expressed between the different conditions over time and every functional category was represented. Cellobiose was accumulated within the ethanol-shocked C. thermocellum cells, as well as the sugar phosphates such as fructose-6-P and cellobiose-6-P. The comparison and correlation among intracellular metabolites, proteomic and transcriptomics profiles as well as the ethanol effects on cellulosome, hydrogenase glycolysis and nitrogen metabolism are discussed, which led us to propose that C. thermocellum may utilize the nitrogen metabolism to bypass the arrested carbon metabolism in responding to ethanol stress shock, and the nitrogen metabolic pathway and redox balance may be the key target for improving ethanol tolerance and production in C. thermocellum. A thirty array study using total RNA recovered from wild-type cultures of Clostridium thermocellum at different time points of 0, 12, 30, 60, 120, and 240 min post-inoculation with 3.95 g/L [0.5% (v/v)] treatment compred to that of control without ethanol supplementation. Two biological replicates for treatment and control condition.

Project description:Background: Clostridium thermocellum is a Gram-positive, anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium with a great potential to be a consolidated bioprocessing biocatalyst that can ferment cellulose to ethanol. To understand its physiology and genetic targets for future strain development, we have carried out several studies including ethanol-tolerant mutant resequencing and ethanol shock experiments. Methods: In this study, several approaches were applied to enrich mRNA for next-generation sequencing based RNA-Seq and the transcriptomic profiling of C. thermocellum ethanol shock responses was investigated using high-density tiling array and RNA-Seq. Correlations among different transcriptomic platforms of expression array, tiling array, and RNA-Seq were then compared, and data generated from systems biology studies were used for transcriptional architecture improvement. Results: Our results indicate that cloning-based Sanger sequencing can be used for mRNA enrichment ratio determination, and low-copy number plasmid performed better than high-copy one for cDNA library construction. In addition, high correlations were observed among same array platform using different analyses as well as those between two different array platforms of tiling and expression array when probe intensity was compared. Correlations between RNA-Seq and array results especially the one between RNA-Seq and tiling array are also high. Moreover, combining both RNA-Seq and microarray data the transcriptional architecture of C. thermocellum including the prediction and verification of novel transcript (gene), transcriptional start site (TSS), CAZyme genes, ncRNA, and operon were systematically updated and improved. Conclusions: RNA-seq has high correlation with array-based transcriptomic platforms and can provide additional information for transcriptional architecture and genome annotation improvement, which will facilitate future omics-based studies. A twelve array study using total RNA recovered from wild-type cultures of Clostridium thermocellum at different time points of 30, 60, and 120 min post-inoculation with 3.95 g/L [0.5% (v/v)] treatment compred to that of control without ethanol supplementation. Two biological replicates for treatment and control condition.

Project description:Background: The ability of Clostridium thermocellum ATCC 27405 wild-type strain to hydrolyze cellulose and ferment the degradation products directly to ethanol and other metabolic byproducts makes it an attractive candidate for consolidated bioprocessing of cellulosic biomass to biofuels. In this study, whole-genome microarrays were used to investigate the expression of C. thermocellum mRNA during growth on crystalline cellulose in controlled replicate batch fermentations. Results: A time-series analysis of gene expression revealed changes in transcript levels of ~40% of genes (~1300 out of 3198 ORFs encoded in the genome) during transition from early-exponential to late-stationary phase. K-means clustering of genes with statistically significant changes in transcript levels identified six distinct clusters of temporal expression. Broadly, genes involved in energy production, translation, glycolysis and amino acid, nucleotide and coenzyme metabolism displayed a decreasing trend in gene expression as cells entered stationary phase. In comparison, genes involved in cell structure and motility, chemotaxis, signal transduction and transcription showed an increasing trend in gene expression. Hierarchical clustering of cellulosome-related genes highlighted temporal changes in composition of this multi-enzyme complex during batch growth on crystalline cellulose, with increased expression of several genes encoding hydrolytic enzymes involved in degradation of non-cellulosic substrates in stationary phase. Conclusions: Overall, the results suggest that under low substrate availability, growth slows due to decreased metabolic potential and C. thermocellum alters its gene expression to (i) modulate the composition of cellulosomes that are released into the environment with an increased proportion of enzymes than can efficiently degrade plant polysaccharides other than cellulose, (ii) enhance signal transduction and chemotaxis mechanisms perhaps to sense the oligo-saccharide hydrolysis products, and nutrient gradients generated through the action of cell-free cellulosomes and, (iii) increase cellular motility for potentially orienting the cellsM-bM-^@M-^Y movement towards positive environmental signals leading to nutrient sources. Such a coordinated cellular strategy would increase its chances of survival in natural ecosystems where feast and famine conditions are frequently encountered. Total RNA was extracted from the cell pellets and the reverse transcribed cDNA was hybridized to oligo-arrays containing duplicated probes representing ~90% of the annotated ORFs in C. thermocellum ATCC27405 genome.Dual-channel dye swap experimental design was used to analyze the time-course of gene expression during cellulose fermentation using two biological replicate fermentation. The 6hr sample as the reference, to which all other time-point samples (8, 10, 12, 14, 16hr) were compared.

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Contribution of cell-bound and cell-free cellulosomal versus non-cellulosomal systems in deconstruction of cellulosic biomass by Clostridium thermocellum

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