Project description:Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of hospital- and community-associated infections. The organism’s ability to cause disease can, in part, be attributable to its ability to adapt to otherwise deleterious host-associated stresses. Like other bacterial species, the modulation of mRNA turnover appears to play an important role in S. aureus adaptation to certain environmental stresses. In the current study Affymetrix GeneChips® were used to examine the S. aureus responses to acid and alkaline shock-inducing conditions and to assess whether stress dependent changes in mRNA turnover are likely to facilitate the organism’s ability to tolerate extreme pH challenge. Results indicate that S. aureus adapts to pH shock by eliciting responses expected of organisms coping with pH alteration, including neutralizing cellular internal pH, DNA repair, amino acid biosynthesis and virulence factor expression. Further, it was found that the cellular response to alkaline conditions elicits a transcriptional profile that is similar to that of stringent response induced cells. Consistent with that observation, we show that the activator of the stringent response, (p)ppGpp, levels are profoundly elevated during alkaline shock conditions. We also show that the mRNA turnover properties of acid or alkaline shocked cells significantly differ from that of cells grown at neutral pH. A comparison of the mRNA degradation properties of transcripts whose titers either increased or decreased in response to sudden pH change revealed that alterations in mRNA degradation may, in part, account for the changes in the mRNA levels of factors predicted to mediate pH tolerance. Finally, a set of small stable RNA molecules were induced in response to acid or alkaline shock conditions. As in other organisms, these molecules may mediate mRNA stability and adaptation to otherwise deleterious growth conditions. Staphylococcus aureus strain UAMS-1 was grown to exponential phase and either mock treated (pH maintained at 7.4) or subjected to acid (pH 4)- or alkaline (pH 10) conditions for 30 min. Next, 200 micrograms per ml of rifampicin were added to arrest transcript synthesis. RNA was extracted from cell suspensions at 0, 2.5, 5, 15, and 30 min post-transcriptional arrest, labeled and hybridized to S. aureus GeneChips. A comparison of 0 min samples allowed assessment of acid and alkaline shock responses. A comparison of 0 min to that of various post-transcriptional arrest RNA samples allowed assessment of the mRNA turnover properties of mock vs acid or alkaline shocked cells. Duplicates of each experimental condition and corresponding post-transcriptional arrest time point were used (biological replicates).

Project description:E. coli K-12 BW25113 mutant strain yncC expression in biofilm cells relative to E. coli wild-type strain expression in biofilm cells. All samples were cultured in LB with glasswool at 37C for 15 hours and E. coli K-12 MG1655 mutant yncC colony cells vs wild type colony cells in LB plates 15h 37C. Quorum-sensing signal autoinducer 2 (AI-2) stimulates Escherichia coli biofilm formation through the motility regulator MqsR that induces expression of the putative transcription factor encoded by yncC. Here we show YncC increases biofilm formation by decreasing mucoidy (corroborated by decreased exopolysaccharide production and increased sensitivity to bacteriophage P1 infection). Differential gene expression and gel shift assays demonstrated that YncC is a repressor of the predicted periplasmic protein-encoding gene ybiM which was corroborated by the isogenic yncC ybiM double mutation which repressed the yncC phenotypes (biofilm formation, mucoidy, and bacteriophage resistance). Through nickel-enrichment microarrays and additional gel shift assays, we found that the putative transcription factor B3023 (directly upstream of mqsR) binds the yncC promoter. Overexpressing MqsR, AI-2 import regulators LsrR/LsrK, and AI-2 exporter TqsA induced yncC transcription whereas the AI-2 synthase LuxS and B3023 repressed yncC. MqsR has a toxic effect on E. coli bacterial growth which is partially reduced by the b3023 mutation. Therefore, AI-2 quorum-sensing control of biofilm formation is mediated through regulator MqsR that induces expression of the transcription factor YncC which serves to inhibit the expression of periplasmic YbiM; this inhibition of YbiM prevents it from overexpressing exopolysaccharide (causing mucoidy) and prevents YbiM from inhibiting biofilm formation. Experiment Overall Design: Strains: E. coli K-12 BW25113 wild-type, mutant yncC Experiment Overall Design: and E. coli K-12 MG1655 wild-type, mutant yncC Experiment Overall Design: Medium: LB Experiment Overall Design: Biofilm grown on glasswool or colony cells growth in LB plates Experiment Overall Design: Time: 15 hours Experiment Overall Design: Temperature: 37C Experiment Overall Design: Cell type: biofilm or colony Experiment Overall Design: For the biofilm arrays in BW25113 background: Experiment Overall Design: Overnight cultures (16 h, 2.5 mL) of wild type E. coli BW25113 and BW25113 yncC in LB and LB with kanamycin (50 Î¼g/mL), respectively, were used to inoculate 250 mL LB with 10 g of glass wool (Corning Glass Works, Corning, NY) for forming biofilm. After incubating at 37Â°C for 15 h with shaking (250 rpm), biofilm cells were prepared by rinsing and sonicating the glass wool in sterile 0.85% NaCl solution at 0Â°C as described before. The total RNA was isolated from biofilm cells as described previously. Experiment Overall Design: The E. coli Genechip antisense genome array (P/N 900381, Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA) containing probes for more than 4200 open reading frames (ORFs) was used to analyze the complete E. coli transcriptome as described previously. Hybridizations were performed for 16 h and the total cell intensity was scaled automatically in the software to an average value of 630. The Gene Expression Technical Manual (Affymetrix) was followed for the procedures of DNA microarrays, and the GeneChip operating software (Affymetrix) was applied to analyze data of DNA microarrays. The data quality was assessed following the manufacturer's guidelines (GeneChip Expression Analysis: Data Analysis Fundamentals; Affymetrix) and also was based on the expected signals of E. coli BW25113 and the yncC mutant genotypes (e.g., signals of the deleted genes, araA and rhaA, were low for both BW25113 and BW25113 yncC, while the signal of yncC was low for the yncC mutant). A gene was identified as differentially-expressed when the P value based on the False Discovery Rate Method was less than 0.05 and the expression ratio was greater than threefold since the standard deviation for the expression ratio for all of genes was 2. Experiment Overall Design: for the colony arrays in MG1655 background: Experiment Overall Design: For the agar biofilm, fresh single colonies of wild-type E. coli MG1655 and MG1655 yncC were re-streaked on LB agar plates, incubated, and about 0.05 g of the colony cultures on LB plate were quickly transferred to 2-mL collection tubes. The total RNA was isolated from these colony cells as described previously. The E. coli GeneChip Genome 2.0 Array (Affymetrix, P/N 900551, Santa Clara, CA) containing 10,208 probe sets for open reading frames, rRNA, tRNA, and intergenic regions for four E. coli strains: MG1655, CFT073, O157:H7-Sakai, and O157:H7-EDL933, was used to analyze the complete E. coli transcriptome. A gene was identified as differentially-expressed when the P value based on the False Discovery Rate Method (Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995) was less than 0.05 and the expression ratio was greater than threefold since the standard deviation for the expression ratio for all of MG1655 genes (except the deleted yncC gene) was 2.

Project description:Leafy green vegetables, such as lettuce, have been increasingly implicated in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses due to contamination by Escherichia coli O157:H7. While E. coli can survive in soils, colonize plants, and survive on produce, very little is known about the interaction of E. coli with the roots of growing lettuce plants. In these studies a combination of microarray analyses and microbial genetics were used to gain a comprehensive understanding of bacterial genes involved in the colonization and growth of E. coli K12 on lettuce roots using a hydroponic assay system. Here we report that after three days of interaction with lettuce roots, 193 and 131 genes were significantly up-regulated and down-regulated at least 1.5 fold, respectively. Forty-five out of the 193 up-regulated genes (23%) were involved in protein synthesis and were highly induced. Genes involved in stress response, attachment and biofilm formation were up-regulated in E. coli when they interacted with lettuce roots under conditions of hydroponic growth. In particular crl, a gene regulating the cryptic csgA gene for curli production, was significantly up regulated. The crl, csgA and fliN mutants had a reduced capacity to attach to roots as determined by bacterial counts and by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Our microarray data showed that E. coli K12 increased the synthesis of proteins indicated that a dramatic change was induced in the physiology of the microorganism. This study indicates that E. coli K12 can efficiently colonize lettuce roots by using attachment and biofilm modulation genes and can readily adapt to the rhizosphere of lettuce plants. Further studies are needed to better characterize this interaction in pathogenic strains of this species. Escherichia coli MG1655 strains were grown in the lettuce rhizosphere for three days. Transcriptional profiling of E. coli was compared between cells grown with and without rhizosphere . Three biological replicates of each treatment were prepared, and six microarray slides were used.

Project description:Leafy green vegetables, such as lettuce, have been increasingly implicated in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses due to contamination by Escherichia coli O157:H7. While E. coli can survive in soils, colonize plants, and survive on produce, very little is known about the interaction of E. coli with the roots of growing lettuce plants. In these studies, a combination of microarray analyses and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) were used to gain a comprehensive understanding of bacterial genes involved in the colonization and growth of E. coli O157:H7 on lettuce roots and compared to E. coli K12 using a hydroponic system (HS) which we have reported in the previous studies. Using microarray, after three days of interaction with lettuce roots, 94 and 109 genes of E. coli O157:H7 were significantly up-regulated and down-regulated at least 1.5 fold, respectively. Only 8 genes were also found in the E. coli K12 up-regulated genes. No genes were found in the down-regulated genes clusters between those two strains. For E. coli O157:H7, forty out of the 94 up-regulated genes (43%) were involved in protein synthesis and were highly repressed compared to 40 out of 193 (23%) E. coli K12 up-regulated genes associated with protein synthesis. The wildtype of E.coli O157:H7 colonized two log CFU per root less compared to E. coli K12. Genes involved in biofilm modulation (bhsA and ybiM) were significantly up-regulated in E. coli O157:H7 and curli production (crl and csgA) were found important for E. coli K12 to attach to lettuce roots in the previous studies. BhsA mutant of E. coli O157:H7 was impaired in the colonization of lettuce roots. The SERS spectra of E. coli K12 and O157 controls (cells without interacting with roots) were very similar. The spectra of E. coli K12 and O157 exposed to the hydroponic system (HS) showed some differences in the nucleic acid, protein, and lipid regions compared with controls. The spectra of E. coli K12 HS cells exhibited significant differences compared to spectra from E. coli O157 HS cells in the RNA and protein regions. The overall band intensity of amide regions declined for E. coli O157 HS cells, while it increased for E. coli K12 HS cells. The intensity of the RNA bands of E. coli K12 HS cells were also found much higher than those of E. coli O157 HS cells. These findings were in agreement to our Microarray data. Our microarray and SERS data showed that E. coli K12 and O157:H7 behavior dramatically differently in colonizing on lettuce roots. Compared to K12, E. coli O157:H7 colonized less efficiently on lettuce roots. Escherichia coli O157:H7 strains were grown in the lettuce rhizosphere for three days. Transcriptional profiling of E. coli was compared between cells grown with and without rhizosphere . Three biological replicates of each treatment were prepared, and six microarray slides were used.

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Whole Transcriptome Sequencing (RNA-Seq) of Rhizospheric Bacteria isolated from wheat plant

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