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5 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 5

Abstract (Expand)

Increasing antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria necessitates the development of new medication strategies. Interfering with the metabolic network of the pathogen can provide novel drug targets but simultaneously requires a deeper and more detailed organism-specific understanding of the metabolism, which is often surprisingly sparse. In light of this, we reconstructed a genome-scale metabolic model of the pathogen Enterococcus faecalis V583. The manually curated metabolic network comprises 642 metabolites and 706 reactions. We experimentally determined metabolic profiles of E. faecalis grown in chemically defined medium in an anaerobic chemostat setup at different dilution rates and calculated the net uptake and product fluxes to constrain the model. We computed growth-associated energy and maintenance parameters and studied flux distributions through the metabolic network. Amino acid auxotrophies were identified experimentally for model validation and revealed seven essential amino acids. In addition, the important metabolic hub of glutamine/glutamate was altered by constructing a glutamine synthetase knockout mutant. The metabolic profile showed a slight shift in the fermentation pattern toward ethanol production and increased uptake rates of multiple amino acids, especially l-glutamine and l-glutamate. The model was used to understand the altered flux distributions in the mutant and provided an explanation for the experimentally observed redirection of the metabolic flux. We further highlighted the importance of gene-regulatory effects on the redirection of the metabolic fluxes upon perturbation. The genome-scale metabolic model presented here includes gene-protein-reaction associations, allowing a further use for biotechnological applications, for studying essential genes, proteins, or reactions, and the search for novel drug targets.

Authors: N. Veith, M. Solheim, K. W. van Grinsven, B. G. Olivier, J. Levering, R. Grosseholz, J. Hugenholtz, H. Holo, I. Nes, B. Teusink, U. Kummer

Date Published: 19th Dec 2014

Publication Type: Not specified

Abstract (Expand)

Enterococcus faecalis V583 was grown in a glucose-limited chemostat at three different (0.05 h(-1), 0.15 h(-1) and 0.4 h(-1)) growth rates. The fermentation pattern changed with growth rate, from a mostly homolactic profile at high growth rate to a fermentation dominated by formate, acetate and ethanol production at low growth rate. A number of amino acids were consumed at the lower growth rates but not by fast growing cells. The change in metabolic profile was mainly caused by decreased flux through lactate dehydrogenase. Transcription of ldh-1, encoding the principal lactate dehydrogenase, showed very strong growth rate dependence and differed by three orders of magnitude between the highest and the lowest growth rates. Despite the increase in ldh-1 transcript, the content of the Ldh-1 protein was the same under all conditions. Using microarrays and qPCR the levels of 227 gene transcript were found to be affected by the growth rate, and 56 differentially expressed proteins were found by proteomic analyses. Few genes or proteins showed a growth rate-dependent increase or decrease in expression over the whole range of conditions, and many showed at maximum or minimum at the middle growth rate (D=0.15h(-1)). For many gene products a discrepancy between transcriptomic and proteomic data were seen, indicating post-transcriptional regulation of expression.

Authors: , Ellen M Faergestad, , Lars Snipen, ,

Date Published: 1st Nov 2011

Publication Type: Not specified

Abstract (Expand)

A constructed lactate dehydrogenase-negative mutant of Enterococcus faecalis V583 grows at the same rate as the wild type, but ferments glucose to ethanol, formate, and acetoin. Microrray analysis showed that LDH deficiency had profound transcriptional effects, 43 genes in the mutant were found to be upregulated and 45 to be downregulated. Most of the upregulated genes encode enzymes of energy metabolism or transport. By 2D gel analysis 45 differentially expressed proteins were identified. A comparison of transcriptomic and proteomic data suggests that for several proteins the level of expression is regulated beyond the level of transcription. Pyruvate catabolic genes, including the truncated ldh, showed highly increased transcription in the mutant. These genes, along with a number of other differentially expressed genes, are preceded by sequences with homology to binding sites for the global redox-sensing repressor, Rex, of Staphylococcus aureus. The data indicate that the genes are transcriptionally regulated by the NADH/NAD ratio and that this ratio plays an important role in the regulatory network controlling energy metabolism in E. faecalis.

Authors: , , Ellen M Fergestad, Geir Mathiesen, ,

Date Published: 8th Feb 2011

Publication Type: Not specified

Abstract (Expand)

Several lactic acid bacteria use homolactic fermentation for generation of ATP. Here we studied the role of the lactate dehydrogenase enzyme on the general physiology of the three homolactic acid bacteria Lactococcus lactis, Enterococcus faecalis and Streptococcus pyogenes. Of note, deletion of the ldh genes hardly affected the growth rate in chemically defined medium in microaerophilic conditions. However, growth rate was affected in rich medium. Furthermore, deletion of ldh affected the ability for utilization of various substrates as a carbon source. A switch to mixed acid fermentation was observed in glucose-limited continuous growth and was dependent on the growth rate for S. pyogenes and dependent on the pH for E. faecalis. In S. pyogenes and L. lactis a change in pH resulted in a clear change in Yatp. The pH that showed the highest Yatp corresponded to the pH of the natural habitat of the organisms.

Authors: , , , , Anja Pritzschke, Nikolai Siemens, , ,

Date Published: 25th Nov 2010

Publication Type: Not specified

Abstract (Expand)

The roles of the two ldh genes of Enterococcus faecalis were studied using knockout mutants. Deletion of ldh-1 causes a metabolic shift from homolactic fermentation to ethanol, formate, and acetoin production, with a high level of formate production even under aerobic conditions. Ldh-2 plays only a minor role in lactate production.

Authors: , Zhian Saleihan, ,

Date Published: 22nd May 2009

Publication Type: Not specified

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