1
|
Ramesh Kumar U, Nguyen NT, Dewangan NK, Mohiuddin SG, Orman MA, Cirino PC, Conrad JC. Co-Expression of type 1 fimbriae and flagella in Escherichia coli: consequences for adhesion at interfaces. SOFT MATTER 2024. [PMID: 39021099 DOI: 10.1039/d4sm00499j] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/20/2024]
Abstract
Escherichia coli expresses surface appendages including fimbriae, flagella, and curli, at various levels in response to environmental conditions and external stimuli. Previous studies have revealed an interplay between expression of fimbriae and flagella in several E. coli strains, but how this regulation between fimbrial and flagellar expression affects adhesion to interfaces is incompletely understood. Here, we investigate how the concurrent expression of fimbriae and flagella by engineered strains of E. coli MG1655 affects their adhesion at liquid-solid and liquid-liquid interfaces. We tune fimbrial and flagellar expression on the cell surface through plasmid-based inducible expression of the fim operon and fliC-flhDC genes. We show that increased fimbrial expression increases interfacial adhesion as well as bacteria-driven actuation of micron-sized objects. Co-expression of flagella in fimbriated bacteria, however, does not greatly affect either of these properties. Together, these results suggest that interfacial adhesion as well as motion actuated by adherent bacteria can be altered by controlling the expression of surface appendages.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Udayanidhi Ramesh Kumar
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Nam T Nguyen
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Narendra K Dewangan
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Sayed Golam Mohiuddin
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Mehmet A Orman
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Patrick C Cirino
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| | - Jacinta C Conrad
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Bahrami Moghadam E, Nguyen N, Wang Y, Cirino PC. Directed Evolution of Protein-Based Sensors for Anaerobic Biological Activation of Methane. BIOSENSORS 2024; 14:325. [PMID: 39056601 PMCID: PMC11275114 DOI: 10.3390/bios14070325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2024] [Revised: 06/24/2024] [Accepted: 06/27/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024]
Abstract
Microbial alkane degradation pathways provide biological routes for converting these hydrocarbons into higher-value products. We recently reported the functional expression of a methyl-alkylsuccinate synthase (Mas) system in Escherichia coli, allowing for the heterologous anaerobic activation of short-chain alkanes. However, the enzymatic activation of methane via natural or engineered alkylsuccinate synthases has yet to be reported. To address this, we employed high-throughput screening to engineer the itaconate (IA)-responsive regulatory protein ItcR (WT-ItcR) from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis to instead respond to methylsuccinate (MS, the product of methane addition to fumarate), resulting in genetically encoded biosensors for MS. Here, we describe ItcR variants that, when regulating fluorescent protein expression in E. coli, show increased sensitivity, improved overall response, and enhanced specificity toward exogenously added MS relative to the wild-type repressor. Structural modeling and analysis of the ItcR ligand binding pocket provide insights into the altered molecular recognition. In addition to serving as biosensors for screening alkylsuccinate synthases capable of methane activation, MS-responsive ItcR variants also establish a framework for the directed evolution of other molecular reporters, targeting longer-chain alkylsuccinate products or other succinate derivatives.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Patrick C. Cirino
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4004, USA; (E.B.M.)
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Zhou Y, Zhou S, Lyons S, Sun H, Sweedler JV, Lu Y. Enhancing 2-Pyrone Synthase Efficiency by High-Throughput Mass-Spectrometric Quantification and In Vitro/In Vivo Catalytic Performance Correlation. Chembiochem 2024; 25:e202300849. [PMID: 38116888 DOI: 10.1002/cbic.202300849] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2023] [Accepted: 12/19/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Abstract
Engineering efficient biocatalysts is essential for metabolic engineering to produce valuable bioproducts from renewable resources. However, due to the complexity of cellular metabolic networks, it is challenging to translate success in vitro into high performance in cells. To meet such a challenge, an accurate and efficient quantification method is necessary to screen a large set of mutants from complex cell culture and a careful correlation between the catalysis parameters in vitro and performance in cells is required. In this study, we employed a mass-spectrometry based high-throughput quantitative method to screen new mutants of 2-pyrone synthase (2PS) for triacetic acid lactone (TAL) biosynthesis through directed evolution in E. coli. From the process, we discovered two mutants with the highest improvement (46 fold) in titer and the fastest kcat (44 fold) over the wild type 2PS, respectively, among those reported in the literature. A careful examination of the correlation between intracellular substrate concentration, Michaelis-Menten parameters and TAL titer for these two mutants reveals that a fast reaction rate under limiting intracellular substrate concentrations is important for in-cell biocatalysis. Such properties can be tuned by protein engineering and synthetic biology to adopt these engineered proteins for the maximum activities in different intracellular environments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yu Zhou
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, 105 E 24th St, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| | - Shuaizhen Zhou
- DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| | - Scott Lyons
- Department of Molecular Bioscience, The University of Texas at Austin, 100 E 24th St, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Haoran Sun
- Department of Molecular Bioscience, The University of Texas at Austin, 100 E 24th St, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Jonathan V Sweedler
- DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 505 S Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| | - Yi Lu
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, 105 E 24th St, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- DOE Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 W Gregory Dr, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Miller CA, Ho JML, Bennett MR. Strategies for Improving Small-Molecule Biosensors in Bacteria. BIOSENSORS 2022; 12:bios12020064. [PMID: 35200325 PMCID: PMC8869690 DOI: 10.3390/bios12020064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2021] [Revised: 01/14/2022] [Accepted: 01/18/2022] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
In recent years, small-molecule biosensors have become increasingly important in synthetic biology and biochemistry, with numerous new applications continuing to be developed throughout the field. For many biosensors, however, their utility is hindered by poor functionality. Here, we review the known types of mechanisms of biosensors within bacterial cells, and the types of approaches for optimizing different biosensor functional parameters. Discussed approaches for improving biosensor functionality include methods of directly engineering biosensor genes, considerations for choosing genetic reporters, approaches for tuning gene expression, and strategies for incorporating additional genetic modules.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Corwin A. Miller
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University MS-140, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005, USA; (C.A.M.); (J.M.L.H.)
| | - Joanne M. L. Ho
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University MS-140, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005, USA; (C.A.M.); (J.M.L.H.)
| | - Matthew R. Bennett
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University MS-140, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005, USA; (C.A.M.); (J.M.L.H.)
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University MS-140, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005, USA
- Correspondence:
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Flachbart LK, Gertzen CGW, Gohlke H, Marienhagen J. Development of a Biosensor Platform for Phenolic Compounds Using a Transition Ligand Strategy. ACS Synth Biol 2021; 10:2002-2014. [PMID: 34369151 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.1c00165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The time-consuming and laborious characterization of protein or microbial strain designs limits the development of high-performance biocatalysts for biotechnological applications. Here, transcriptional biosensors emerged as valuable tools as they allow for rapid characterization of several thousand variants within a very short time. However, for many molecules of interest, no specific transcriptional regulator determining a biosensor's specificity is available. We present an approach for rapidly engineering biosensor specificities using a semirational transition ligand approach combined with fluorescence-activated cell sorting. In this two-step approach, a biosensor is first evolved toward a more relaxed-ligand specificity before using the resulting variant as the starting point in a second round of directed evolution toward high specificity for several chemically different ligands. By following this strategy, highly specific biosensors for 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, p-coumaric acid, 5-bromoferulic acid, and 6-methyl salicylic acid were developed, starting from a biosensor for the intracellular detection of trans-cinnamic acid.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Lion Konstantin Flachbart
- Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
| | - Christoph Gerhard Wilhelm Gertzen
- Institute for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
- John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC), Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) and Institute of Biological Information Processing (IBI-7: Structural Biochemistry), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
- Center for Structural Studies (CSS), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Holger Gohlke
- Institute for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
- John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC), Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) and Institute of Biological Information Processing (IBI-7: Structural Biochemistry), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
| | - Jan Marienhagen
- Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
- Institute of Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Worringer Weg 3, D-52074 Aachen, Germany
| |
Collapse
|