title: Stress responses of the industrial workhorse Bacillus licheniformis to osmotic challenges.
abstract: The Gram-positive endospore-forming bacterium Bacillus licheniformis can be found widely in nature and it is exploited in industrial processes for the manufacturing of antibiotics, specialty chemicals, and enzymes. Both in its varied natural habitats and in industrial settings, B. licheniformis cells will be exposed to increases in the external osmolarity, conditions that trigger water efflux, impair turgor, cause the cessation of growth, and negatively affect the productivity of cell factories in biotechnological processes. We have taken here both systems-wide and targeted physiological approaches to unravel the core of the osmostress responses of B. licheniformis. Cells were suddenly subjected to an osmotic upshift of considerable magnitude (with 1 M NaCl), and their transcriptional profile was then recorded in a time-resolved fashion on a genome-wide scale. A bioinformatics cluster analysis was used to group the osmotically up-regulated genes into categories that are functionally associated with the synthesis and import of osmostress-relieving compounds (compatible solutes), the SigB-controlled general stress response, and genes whose functional annotation suggests that salt stress triggers secondary oxidative stress responses in B. licheniformis. The data set focusing on the transcriptional profile of B. licheniformis was enriched by proteomics aimed at identifying those proteins that were accumulated by the cells through increased biosynthesis in response to osmotic stress. Furthermore, these global approaches were augmented by a set of experiments that addressed the synthesis of the compatible solutes proline and glycine betaine and assessed the growth-enhancing effects of various osmoprotectants. Combined, our data provide a blueprint of the cellular adjustment processes of B. licheniformis to both sudden and sustained osmotic stress.
authors.affiliation: Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schroeter
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microbiology, Department of Biology, University Marburg, Marburg, Germany ; LOEWE-Center for Synthetic Microbiology, University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Tamara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Voigt
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microbiology, Department of Biology, University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bleisteiner
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Muntel
authors.affiliation: Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jürgen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Albrecht
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Dörte
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Becher
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lalk
authors.affiliation: Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Evers
authors.affiliation: Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bongaerts
authors.affiliation: AB Enzymes GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Karl-Heinz
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Maurer
authors.affiliation: CNRS UPR 9073 (Affiliated with Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité), Institute de Biologie Physico-Chimique, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Putzer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hecker
authors.affiliation: Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schweder
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microbiology, Department of Biology, University Marburg, Marburg, Germany ; LOEWE-Center for Synthetic Microbiology, University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Erhard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bremer
mesh_terms: D001407:Bacillus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism*; D001622:Betaine / Q000494:pharmacology; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000187:drug effects; D009997:Osmotic Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D018384:Oxidative Stress / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D001622:Betaine