title: Engineering the bacterial shapes for enhanced inclusion bodies accumulation.
abstract: Many bacteria can accumulate inclusion bodies such as sulfur, polyphosphate, glycogen, proteins or polyhydroxyalkanoates. To exploit bacteria as factories for effective production of inclusion bodies, a larger intracellular space is needed for more inclusion body accumulation. In this study, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) was investigated as an inclusion bodies representative to be accumulated by Escherichia coli JM109SG. Various approaches were taken to increase the bacterial cell sizes including deletion on actin-like protein gene mreB, weak expression of mreB in mreB deletion mutant, and weak expression of mreB in mreB deletion mutant under inducible expression of SulA, the inhibitor of division ring protein FtsZ. All of the methods resulted in different levels of increases in bacterial sizes and PHB granules accumulation. Remarkably, an increase of over 100% PHB accumulation was observed in recombinant E. coli overexpressing mreB in an mreB deletion mutant under inducible expression of FtsZ inhibiting protein SulA. The molecular mechanism of enlarged bacterial size was found to be directly relate to weakened cytoskeleton which was the result of broken skeleton helix.
authors: MOE Key Lab of Bioinformatics, Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Xiao-Ran
authors: XR
authors: Jiang
authors: MOE Key Lab of Bioinformatics, Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; College of Eco-Environmental Engineering, Qinghai University, Xining 810016, China.
authors: Huan
authors: H
authors: Wang
authors: MOE Key Lab of Bioinformatics, Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Rui
authors: R
authors: Shen
authors: MOE Key Lab of Bioinformatics, Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: chengq@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors: Guo-Qiang
authors: GQ
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017353:Gene Deletion; D006885:Hydroxybutyrates / Q000378:metabolism*; D002479:Inclusion Bodies / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011091:Polyesters / Q000378:metabolism*; D000094122:Polyhydroxybutyrates
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D006885:Hydroxybutyrates; D011091:Polyesters; C071525:FtsZ protein, Bacteria; C078473:MreB protein, E coli; C003182:poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate; D000094122:Polyhydroxybutyrates
keywords: Cell morphology; Cell size; Escherichia coli; Inclusion bodies; PHB; mreB