ABSTRACT: Analysis of the biochemical properties, biological activity and biotechnological potential of siderophores and biosurfactants produced by Antarctic psychrotolerant bacteria
Project description:Identify the molecular cues (genes) which shape the biochemical composition and the nanomechanical properties of the cell wall of Saccharomyces cerevisae and the links between these two parameters represent a major issue in the understanding of the biogenesis and the molecular assembly of this essential cellular structure, which may have consequences in diverse biotechnological applications. Firstly, we compared the biochemical and biophysical properties of 4 industrial strains with the laboratory sequenced strain BY4743 and used transcriptome data of these strains to infer biological hypothesis about differences of these properties between strains. The second approach was to employ a multivariate statistical analysis to identify highly correlated variables among biochemical, biophysical and genes expression data.
Project description:Because of severe abiotic limitations, Antarctic soils represent simplified ecosystems, where microorganisms are the principle drivers of nutrient cycling. This relative simplicity makes these ecosystems particularly vulnerable to perturbations, like global warming, and the Antarctic Peninsula is among the most rapidly warming regions on the planet. However, the consequences of the ongoing warming of Antarctica on microorganisms and the processes they mediate are unknown. Here, using 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing and qPCR, we report a number of highly consistent changes in microbial community structure and abundance across very disparate sub-Antarctic and Antarctic environments following three years of experimental field warming (+ 0.5-2°C). Specifically, we found significant increases in the abundance of fungi and bacteria and in the Alphaproteobacteria-to-Acidobacteria ratio. These alterations were linked to a significant increase in soil respiration. Furthermore, the shifts toward generalist or opportunistic bacterial communities following warming weakened the linkage between bacterial diversity and functional diversity. Warming also increased the abundance of some organisms related to the N-cycle, detected as an increase in the relative abundance of nitrogenase genes via GeoChip microarray analyses. Our results demonstrate that soil microorganisms across a range of sub-Antarctic and Antarctic environments can respond consistently and rapidly to increasing temperatures, thereby potentially disrupting soil functioning.
Project description:Enterocin AS-48 is produced by Enterococcus faecalis S48 to compete with other bacteria in their environment. Due to its activity against various Gram positive and some Gram negative bacteria it has clear potential for use as a food preservative. Here, we studied the effect of enterocin AS-48 challenges on vegetative cells of Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 by use of transcriptome analysis.
Project description:Many normal adult tissues contain rare stem cells with extensive self-maintaining regenerative potential. During development, the stem cells of the hematopoietic and neural systems undergo intrinsically specified changes in their self-renewal potential. In the mouse, mammary stem cells with transplantable regenerative activity are first detectable a few days before birth. They share some phenotypic properties with their adult counterparts but are enriched in a subpopulation that displays a distinct gene expression profile. Here we show that fetal mammary epithelial cells have a greater direct and inducible growth potential than their adult counterparts. The latter feature is revealed in a novel culture system that enables large numbers of mammary stem cells with serially transplantable activity as well as in vitro clonogenic progenitors to be produced within 7 days from single fetal or adult input cells. We further show that these responses are highly dependent on novel factors produced by fibroblasts. These findings provide new avenues for elucidating mechanisms that regulate normal mammary epithelial stem cell properties at the single-cell level, how these change during development, and how their perturbation may contribute to transformation. We used microarrays to compare the transcriptome of E18.5 fetal and adult MRU-enriched mammary cells. Three biological replicates each of CD31-CD45-Ter119-BP-1-EpCAM+CD49f+ adult basal cells and CD31-CD45-Ter119-EpCAM++CD49f+ fetal cells were sorted. RNA was extracted and hybridized to the Agilent One-Color Gene Expression Arrays .
Project description:Enterocin AS-48 is produced by Enterococcus faecalis S48 to compete with other bacteria in their environment. Due to its activity against various Gram positive and some Gram negative bacteria it has clear potential for use as a food preservative. Here, we studied the effect of enterocin AS-48 challenges on vegetative cells of Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 by use of transcriptome analysis. Control: Wild type against Target: Enterocin AS-48 challenge A supplementary file containing processed data of all samples combined is linked below. Mn column is the lowess normalized LN (Target/Control).