Project description:Correcting Direct Effects of Ethanol on Translation and Transcription Machinery Confers Ethanol Tolerance in Bacteria [Terminator_Readthrough_RNAseq]
Project description:Correcting Direct Effects of Ethanol on Translation and Transcription Machinery Confers Ethanol Tolerance in Bacteria [Ribosome_Profiling]
Project description:The molecular mechanisms of ethanol toxicity and tolerance in bacteria, while important for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, remain incompletely understood. Genetic studies have identified potential cellular targets for ethanol and revealed multiple mechanisms of tolerance, but it remains difficult to separate direct and indirect effects of ethanol. We used adaptive evolution to generate spontaneous ethanol-tolerant strains of Escherichia coli, then characterized the mechanisms of toxicity and resistance associated with select mutations. Evolved alleles of metJ, rho, and rpsQ were sufficient to recapitulate much of the observed ethanol tolerance, implicating translation and transcription as key processes affected by ethanol. We found that ethanol induces mistranslation errors during protein synthesis, and that the evolved rpsQ allele protects cells by rendering the ribosome hyper-accurate. Ribosome profiling and RNAseq analyses of the ethanol-tolerant strain versus the wild type established that ethanol negatively affects transcriptional and translational processivity. Ethanol-stressed cells exhibited ribosomal stalling at internal AUG codons, which may be ameliorated by the adaptive inactivation of the MetJ repressor of methionine biosynthesis genes. Ethanol also caused aberrant intragenic transcription termination for mRNAs with low ribosome density, which was reduced in a strain with the adaptive rho mutation. Furthermore, ethanol inhibited transcript elongation by RNA polymerase in vitro. We propose that ethanol-induced inhibition and uncoupling of mRNA and protein synthesis are major contributors to ethanol toxicity in E. coli, and that adaptive mutations in metJ, rho, and rpsQ protect central dogma processes in the presence of ethanol.
Project description:The molecular mechanisms of ethanol toxicity and tolerance in bacteria, while important for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, remain incompletely understood. Genetic studies have identified potential cellular targets for ethanol and revealed multiple mechanisms of tolerance, but it remains difficult to separate direct and indirect effects of ethanol. We used adaptive evolution to generate spontaneous ethanol-tolerant strains of Escherichia coli, then characterized the mechanisms of toxicity and resistance associated with select mutations. Evolved alleles of metJ, rho, and rpsQ were sufficient to recapitulate much of the observed ethanol tolerance, implicating translation and transcription as key processes affected by ethanol. We found that ethanol induces mistranslation errors during protein synthesis, and that the evolved rpsQ allele protects cells by rendering the ribosome hyper-accurate. Ribosome profiling and RNAseq analyses of the ethanol-tolerant strain versus the wild type established that ethanol negatively affects transcriptional and translational processivity. Ethanol-stressed cells exhibited ribosomal stalling at internal AUG codons, which may be ameliorated by the adaptive inactivation of the MetJ repressor of methionine biosynthesis genes. Ethanol also caused aberrant intragenic transcription termination for mRNAs with low ribosome density, which was reduced in a strain with the adaptive rho mutation. Furthermore, ethanol inhibited transcript elongation by RNA polymerase in vitro. We propose that ethanol-induced inhibition and uncoupling of mRNA and protein synthesis are major contributors to ethanol toxicity in E. coli, and that adaptive mutations in metJ, rho, and rpsQ protect central dogma processes in the presence of ethanol.
Project description:The molecular mechanisms of ethanol toxicity and tolerance in bacteria, while important for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, remain incompletely understood. Genetic studies have identified potential cellular targets for ethanol and revealed multiple mechanisms of tolerance, but it remains difficult to separate direct and indirect effects of ethanol. We used adaptive evolution to generate spontaneous ethanol-tolerant strains of Escherichia coli, then characterized the mechanisms of toxicity and resistance associated with select mutations. Evolved alleles of metJ, rho, and rpsQ were sufficient to recapitulate much of the observed ethanol tolerance, implicating translation and transcription as key processes affected by ethanol. We found that ethanol induces mistranslation errors during protein synthesis, and that the evolved rpsQ allele protects cells by rendering the ribosome hyper-accurate. Ribosome profiling and RNAseq analyses of the ethanol-tolerant strain versus the wild type established that ethanol negatively affects transcriptional and translational processivity. Ethanol-stressed cells exhibited ribosomal stalling at internal AUG codons, which may be ameliorated by the adaptive inactivation of the MetJ repressor of methionine biosynthesis genes. Ethanol also caused aberrant intragenic transcription termination for mRNAs with low ribosome density, which was reduced in a strain with the adaptive rho mutation. Furthermore, ethanol inhibited transcript elongation by RNA polymerase in vitro. We propose that ethanol-induced inhibition and uncoupling of mRNA and protein synthesis are major contributors to ethanol toxicity in E. coli, and that adaptive mutations in metJ, rho, and rpsQ protect central dogma processes in the presence of ethanol. RNA-seq comparison of wild-type and mutant strains to assess readthrough of Rho-dependent transcriptional terminators
Project description:The molecular mechanisms of ethanol toxicity and tolerance in bacteria, while important for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, remain incompletely understood. Genetic studies have identified potential cellular targets for ethanol and revealed multiple mechanisms of tolerance, but it remains difficult to separate direct and indirect effects of ethanol. We used adaptive evolution to generate spontaneous ethanol-tolerant strains of Escherichia coli, then characterized the mechanisms of toxicity and resistance associated with select mutations. Evolved alleles of metJ, rho, and rpsQ were sufficient to recapitulate much of the observed ethanol tolerance, implicating translation and transcription as key processes affected by ethanol. We found that ethanol induces mistranslation errors during protein synthesis, and that the evolved rpsQ allele protects cells by rendering the ribosome hyper-accurate. Ribosome profiling and RNAseq analyses of the ethanol-tolerant strain versus the wild type established that ethanol negatively affects transcriptional and translational processivity. Ethanol-stressed cells exhibited ribosomal stalling at internal AUG codons, which may be ameliorated by the adaptive inactivation of the MetJ repressor of methionine biosynthesis genes. Ethanol also caused aberrant intragenic transcription termination for mRNAs with low ribosome density, which was reduced in a strain with the adaptive rho mutation. Furthermore, ethanol inhibited transcript elongation by RNA polymerase in vitro. We propose that ethanol-induced inhibition and uncoupling of mRNA and protein synthesis are major contributors to ethanol toxicity in E. coli, and that adaptive mutations in metJ, rho, and rpsQ protect central dogma processes in the presence of ethanol. Examination of wild-type and mutant strains at three different time points (one pre-ethanol-stress, two post-ethanol-stress)
Project description:To improve ethanol production directly from CO2 in photosynthetic cyanobacterial systems, one key issue that needs to be addressed is the low ethanol tolerance of cyanobacterial cells. Our previous proteomic and transcriptomic analyses found that several regulatory proteins were up regulated by exogenous ethanol in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. In this study, through tolerance analysis of the gene disruption mutants of the up-regulated regulatory genes, we uncovered that one transcriptional regulator, Sll0794, was related directly to ethanol tolerance in Synechocystis. Using a quantitative iTRAQ-LC-MS/MS proteomics approach coupled with quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-qPCR), we further determined the possible regulatory network of Sll0794. The proteomic analysis showed that in the ∆sll0794 mutant grown under ethanol stress a total of 54 and 87 unique proteins were down- and up-regulated, respectively. In addition, electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) demonstrated that the Sll0794 transcriptional regulator was able to bind directly to the upstream regions of sll1514, slr1512 and slr1838, which encode a 16.6 kDa small heat shock protein, a putative sodium-dependent bicarbonate transporter and a carbon dioxide concentrating mechanism protein CcmK, respectively. The study provided a proteomic description of the putative ethanol-tolerance network regulated by the sll0794 gene, and revealed new insights on the ethanol-tolerance regulatory mechanism in Synechocystis. As the first regulatory protein discovered related to ethanol tolerance, the gene may serve as a valuable target for transcription machinery engineering to further improve ethanol tolerance in Synechocystis.
Project description:Global transcription machinery engineering (gTME) is an approach for reprogramming gene transcription to elicit cellular phenotypes important for technological applications. Here we show the application of gTME to Saccharomyces cerevisiae for improved glucose/ethanol tolerance, a key trait for many biofuels programs. Mutagenesis of the transcription factor Spt15p and selection led to dominant mutations that conferred increased tolerance and more efficient glucose conversion to ethanol. The desired phenotype results from the combined effect of three separate mutations in the SPT15 gene [serine substituted for phenylalanine (Phe177Ser) and, similarly, Tyr195His, and Lys218Arg]. Thus, gTME can provide a route to complex phenotypes that are not readily accessible by traditional methods. Experiment Overall Design: We measured transcription levels for two strains (wild type control and mutant spt15) under normal (0% ethanol, 20 g/L glucose) and stress (5% ethanol, 60 g/L glucose) in biological triplicate.
Project description:Global transcription machinery engineering (gTME) is an approach for reprogramming gene transcription to elicit cellular phenotypes important for technological applications. Here we show the application of gTME to Saccharomyces cerevisiae for improved glucose/ethanol tolerance, a key trait for many biofuels programs. Mutagenesis of the transcription factor Spt15p and selection led to dominant mutations that conferred increased tolerance and more efficient glucose conversion to ethanol. The desired phenotype results from the combined effect of three separate mutations in the SPT15 gene [serine substituted for phenylalanine (Phe177Ser) and, similarly, Tyr195His, and Lys218Arg]. Thus, gTME can provide a route to complex phenotypes that are not readily accessible by traditional methods. Keywords: stress response