Engineering of the Small Noncoding RNA (sRNA) DsrA Together with the sRNA Chaperone Hfq Enhances the Acid Tolerance of Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Acid tolerance of microorganisms is a desirable phenotype for many industrial fermentation applications. In Escherichia coli, the stress response sigma factor RpoS is a promising target for engineering acid-tolerant phenotypes. However, the simple overexpression of RpoS alone is insufficient to confer these phenotypes. In this study, we show that the simultaneous overexpression of the noncoding small RNA (sRNA) DsrA and the sRNA chaperone Hfq, which act as RpoS activators, significantly increased acid tolerance in terms of cell growth under modest acidic pH, as well as cell survival upon extreme acid shock. Directed evolution of the DsrA-Hfq module further improved the acid tolerance, with the best mutants showing a 51 to 72% increase in growth performance at pH 4.5 compared with the start

SUBMITTER: Lin Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8117753 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature