Project description:Pseudomonas alloputida KT2440 (previously misclassified as P. putida KT2440 based on 16S rRNA gene homology) has emerged as an ideal host strain for plan t biomass valorization. However, P. alloputida KT2440 is unable to natively utilize abundant pentose sugars (e.g., xylose and arabinose) in hydrolysate streams, which may account for up to 25% of lignocellulosic biomass. In the last decades, microbes have been engineered to utilize the pentose sugars. However, most of the engineered strains were either slow-growing or displayed phenotypes that could not be replicated. In this work, we successfully isolated five Pseudomonas species with the native capability to utilize glucose, xylose and p-coumarate as a sole carbon source. These isolates were in two clusters; one set of isolates (M2 and M5) and the second set of isolates (BP6 and BP7) showed 85.6% and 96.2% ANI, respectively, to P. alloputida KT24440. BP8 showed 84.6% ANI to P. putida KT2440 and does not belong to any neighboring type strains indicating a new species. Notably, the isolates showed robust growth solely on xylose and higher growth rates (m, 0.36-0.49 h-1) when compared to only known xylose-utilizing Pseudomonas taiwanenesis VLB120 (m, 0.28 h-1) as a control. Unexpectedly, among five isolates, M2 and M5 grew solely on arabinose as well. Comprehensive analysis of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics revealed the isolates utilize xylose and arabinose via Weimberg pathway (xylD-xylX-xylA) and oxidative pathway (araD-araX-araA), respectively. Furthermore, a preliminary result demonstrated the production of flaviolin solely on xylose and arabinose in the isolate, showing noteworthy potential to be an alternative host for lignocellulosic feedstocks into valuable products. This is the first report on isolating Pseudomonas strains natively capable of utilizing all of the major carbon sources in lignocellulosic biomass, and leading to higher consumption of available substrates and therefore maximizing the product yield.
Project description:Pseudomonas aeruginosa undergoes genetic change during chronic infection of the airways of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. One common change is mutation of lasR. LasR is a transcriptional regulator that responds to one of the quorum sensing signals in P. aeruginosa, and regulates acute virulence factor expression as well as central metabolic functions. P. aeruginosa mutants in which lasR was inactivated emerged in the airways of CF patients early during chronic infection, and during growth in the laboratory on Luria-Bertani agar. Both environments are rich in amino acids. Inactivation of lasR in these isolates conferred a growth advantage with amino acids, a phenotype that could account for selection of lasR mutants both in vivo and in vitro. P. aeruginosa lasR mutants were identified by their distinctive colony morphology, including autolysis that correlated with an imbalance in 4-hydroxy-2-alkylquinolines (HAQs), and an iridescent metallic sheen likely caused by the accumulation of one such HAQ. The alterations in transcriptional profile due to inactivation of lasR were conserved in isolates from multiple young CF patients. P. aeruginosa lasR mutations may represent surrogate markers to delineate stages in the natural history of CF airway disease, each with different prognostic and therapeutic implications, analogous to the markers used to direct cancer treatment. Similar to cancer cell mutations that promote unrestricted growth, lasR mutations may promote unrestricted growth of P. aeruginosa in the CF airway by enabling more efficient utilization of available amino acids. Analyse the effects of mutation of the lasR gene in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from cystic fibrosis patients by comparing the transcriptional profile of an isolate from a young patient with that of an isogenic engineered lasR mutant.