A memorial review of Jay Bailey's contribution in prokaryotic metabolic engineering

When mentioning prokaryotic metabolic engineering, most people will immediately think of Jay Bailey. Jay's contribution to this fast-growing field is evident and familiar to many. Therefore, instead of a detailed technical review, we attempt in this article to summarize his contribution and dissect reasons for his success in this area from a standpoint of one of his former students (VH) and of a colleague in the field (JCL). This short review is by no means complete and provides only a partial view of Jay's contribution to the metabolic engineering of prokaryotes.

Intracellular compounds quantification by means of flow cytometry in bacteria: application to xanthan production by Xanthomonas campestris

The use of flow cytometry (FCM) to quantitatively analyze intracellular compounds is studied. FCM is a very useful technique for individual cell studies in microbial systems, and gives access to information which cannot be obtained in any other way. Nevertheless, it provides data in arbitrary units, that is, relative data. This analytical technique could be employed for kinetic modeling of microbial systems and even for internal phenomena analysis, but for this purpose, absolute data-that is concentration of intracellular compounds-must be used. In this work, relative flow cytometry data are transformed into absolute data by means of calibrations employing the same fluorochromes with another technique: spectrofluorymetry. Calibrations of DNA, RNA, and protein intracellular concentrations are presented for the bacteria, Xanthomonas campestris. Other analytical methods, based on biochemical determinations, were also employed to quantify intracellular compounds, but the results obtained are very poor compared with those achieved by means of spectrofluorymetry (SFM). Calibration equations and data obtained by both techniques are given. Evolutions of protein and nucleic acids during Xanthomonas campestris growth and xanthan gum production are shown.

Immuno- and flow cytometric analytical methods for biotechnological research and process monitoring

In this article, the applications of immunoanalysis and flow cytometry for research and process monitoring in biotechnology are discussed. Brief reviews of the two analytical methods are followed by descriptions of actual applications in various areas of biotechnology. In the case of immunoanalysis, emphasis is placed on systems for on-line bioprocess monitoring, and examples are given for a thermostable pullulanase, a mouse IgG, and antithrombin III. Although flow cytometry is not currently an on-line analytical technique, its value as an off-line method is illustrated by examples of the measurement of shear stress effects, lipid content, and sterol content.

Flow cytometry analysis of recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations

A new fluorescent stain has been developed for detecting cloned beta-galactosidase activity in individual cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by flow cytometry. The staining reaction is based on enzymatic cleavage of alpha-naphthol-beta-D-galactopyranoside by intracellular beta-galactosidase and trapping of the liberated naphthol by hexazoniumpararosaniline yielding a fluorescent, insoluble end product. This stain, in connection with an appropriate host strain, has been applied for detecting plasmids encoding inducible beta-galactosidase in unstable recombinant cell populations carrying plasmids with different origins of replication. The method enables rapid determination of the fraction of plasmid-containing cells as well as quantitation of intracellular beta-galactosidase content by kinetic enzyme assay. Inducibility of the marker enzyme is important for maintaining correlation between enzyme and gene content.

Cell cycle operation during batch growth of fission yeast populations

Batch cultivation provides a continuous sequence of different environments useful for studying responses of cell cycle controls. Flow cytometry measurements have been made of the frequency functions for protein, RNA, and DNA at different times during batch growth of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The mean cellular protein and RNA contents and their variances tend to increase with increasing population specific growth rates. Analysis of the mid-exponential phase DNA frequency function data indicates that DNA synthesis occupies 12% of the total cell cycle time and is completed at the same time as cell separation. Coordination of DNA synthesis and cell separation is less precise when population growth rate is low in late lag and early stationary phases.