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Food Research International (Ottawa,... Aug 2024Previous studies have demonstrated that Staphylococcus cohnii WX_M8 and S. saprophyticus MY_A10 significantly enhanced the flavor of Chinese bacon in a mixed... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
New insights into the dominance of mixed fermentation of Staphylococcus cohnii and Staphylococcus saprophyticus in Chinese bacon: Complete genomic and comparative genomic perspectives.
Previous studies have demonstrated that Staphylococcus cohnii WX_M8 and S. saprophyticus MY_A10 significantly enhanced the flavor of Chinese bacon in a mixed fermentation. However, due to the complexity of the processing, the contribution of the bacteria is deceptive when investigating only the phenotypic changes at the time of fermentation. In order to clarify the metabolic mechanisms of mixed fermentation, a technological characterization, whole genome and comparative genomics analysis, and metabolites were approached in this study. Results showed that differences in tolerance characteristics existed between WX_M8 and MY_A10. And the genomes of both the two strains consisted of one chromosome and four circular plasmids. Their genome sizes were 2.74 Mp and 2.62 Mp, the GC contents were 32.45% and 33.18%, and the predicted coding genes (CDS) were 2564 and 2541, respectively. Based on the annotation of gene functions and assessment of metabolic pathways in the KEGG database, WX_M8 and MY_A10 strains were found to harbor complete protein degradation and amino acid metabolic pathways, pyruvate and butanol metabolic pathways, and isoleucine metabolic pathways, and their diverse enzyme-encoding genes superimposed the metabolic functions, whereas the alcohol dehydrogenase genes, adh and frmA, achieved complementary functions in the production of esters. Comparative genomics analysis revealed a diversity of encoding genes of aminotransferases and a greater metabolism for sulfur-containing amino acids, aromatic amino acids, and branched-chain amino acids in the mixed fermentation of strains WX_M8 and MY_A10. Metabolites analysis showed that MY_A10 focused on the production of soluble peptides and free amino acids (FAAs), while WX_M8 focused on volatile organic compounds (VOCs), resulting in a significant enhancement of the flavor of Chinese bacon when the two were mixed fermented. This result may provide direction for strains WX_M8 and MY_A10 to be used as starter cultures and targeted to regulate flavor.
Topics: Fermentation; Genomics; Genome, Bacterial; Staphylococcus; Food Microbiology; Staphylococcus saprophyticus; Metabolic Networks and Pathways; Meat Products
PubMed: 38876605
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2024.114544 -
International Journal For Parasitology.... Jun 2024Cryptosporidium parvum is a waterborne and foodborne zoonotic protozoan parasite, a causative agent of moderate to severe diarrheal diseases in humans and animals....
Lower micromolar activity of the antifungal imidazoles on the bacterial-type bifunctional aldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase (AdhE) in Cryptosporidium parvum and in vitro efficacy against the zoonotic parasite.
Cryptosporidium parvum is a waterborne and foodborne zoonotic protozoan parasite, a causative agent of moderate to severe diarrheal diseases in humans and animals. However, fully effective treatments are unavailable for medical and veterinary uses. There is a need to explore new drug targets for potential development of new therapeutics. Because C. parvum relies on anaerobic metabolism to produce ATP, fermentative enzymes in this parasite are attractive targets for exploration. In this study, we investigated the ethanol-fermentation in the parasite and characterized the basic biochemical features of a bacterial-type bifunctional aldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase, namely CpAdhE. We also screened 3892 chemical entries from three libraries and identified 14 compounds showing >50% inhibition on the enzyme activity of CpAdhE. Intriguingly, antifungal imidazoles and unsaturated fatty acids are the two major chemical groups among the top hits. We further characterized the inhibitory kinetics of selected imidazoles and unsaturated fatty acids on CpAdhE. These compounds displayed lower micromolar activities on CpAdhE (i.e., IC values ranging from 0.88 to 11.02 μM for imidazoles and 8.93 to 35.33 μM for unsaturated fatty acids). Finally, we evaluated the in vitro anti-cryptosporidial efficacies and cytotoxicity of three imidazoles (i.e., tioconazole, miconazole and isoconazole). The three antifungal imidazoles exhibited lower micromolar efficacies against the growth of C. parvum in vitro (EC values ranging from 4.85 to 10.41 μM and selectivity indices ranging from 5.19 to 10.95). The results provide a proof-of-concept data to support that imidazoles are worth being further investigated for potential development of anti-cryptosporidial therapeutics.
PubMed: 38875756
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpddr.2024.100551 -
Frontiers in Microbiology 2024Extremophilic proteins are valuable in various fields, but their expression can be challenging in traditional hosts like due to misfolding and aggregation. (), a...
Extremophilic proteins are valuable in various fields, but their expression can be challenging in traditional hosts like due to misfolding and aggregation. (), a halophilic expression system, offers a solution. This study examined cleavable and non-cleavable purification tags at both the N- and C-termini when fused with the superfolder green fluorescent protein (sfGFP) in . Our findings reveal that an N-terminal 8xHis-tag or Strep-tagII significantly enhances protein production, purity, and yield in . Further experiments with mCherry and halophilic alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) showed improved expression and purification yields when the 8xHis-tag or Strep-tagII was positioned at the C-terminus for mCherry and at the N-terminus for ADH. Co-positioning 8xHis-tag and Twin-Strep-tag at the N-terminus of sfGFP, mCherry, and ADH yielded significantly enhanced results. These findings highlight the importance of thoughtful purification tag design and selection in , providing valuable insights for improving protein production and purification with the potential to advance biotechnological applications.
PubMed: 38873150
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1403623 -
Journal of Agricultural and Food... Jun 20243-Monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) is a chloropropyl alcohol contaminant mainly from the thermal processing of food and could affect kidneys. Pyroptosis is programmed...
3-Monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) is a chloropropyl alcohol contaminant mainly from the thermal processing of food and could affect kidneys. Pyroptosis is programmed cell death mediated by inflammasomes and gasdermins, and excessive cellular pyroptosis and inflammation can lead to tissue injury. In the present study, we found that 3-MCPD increased lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels in vitro and in vivo, increased the protein expression of NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3), N-terminal domain of GSDMD (GSDMD-N), and cleaved caspase-1 and promoted the release of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-18 (IL-18), which induced renal cell pyroptosis and inflammation. Mechanistic studies indicated that the addition of N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a ROS scavenger, inhibited NLRP3 activation and attenuated pyroptosis. Furthermore, we revealed that 3-MCPD induced ROS accumulation by inhibiting ESCRT-III-mediated mitophagy. These results were further validated by the overexpression of charged multivesicular body protein 4B (CHMP4B), a key subunit of ESCRT-III, and the addition of the mitophagy activator carbonyl cyanide -chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) and rapamycin (Rapa). Thus, our results showed that 3-MCPD could induce mitochondrial damage and produce ROS. 3-MCPD suppressed mitophagy, leading to the accumulation of damaged mitochondria and ROS, thereby activating NLRP3 and pyroptosis. Meanwhile, 3-MCPD-mediated suppression of ESCRT-III hindered the repair of GSDMD-induced cell membrane rupture, which further caused the occurrence of pyroptosis. Our findings provide new perspectives for studying the mechanisms underlying 3-MCPD-induced renal injury.
PubMed: 38857427
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c01994 -
ChemSusChem Jun 2024The multi-10.000 tons scale manufactured chemical ε-caprolactone attracts high industrial interest due to its favorable biodegradability properties. However, besides...
The multi-10.000 tons scale manufactured chemical ε-caprolactone attracts high industrial interest due to its favorable biodegradability properties. However, besides being of petrochemical origin yet, its industrial production has a conceptual limitation that is the difficult extraction of this highly water-soluble monomer from the water phase resulting from the aqueous solution of H2O2 applied as reagent. In this contribution, we report a chemoenzymatic cascade starting from bio-based phenol, which makes use of O2 instead of H2O2 and runs in pure organic medium, thus requiring only simply decantation and distillation as work-up. In a first step, phenol is hydrogenated quantitatively to cyclohexanol under solvent-free conditions with a Ru-catalyst. After simple removal of the heterogenous catalyst, cyclohexanol is converted to ε-caprolactone in a biocatalytic double oxidation with very high yields just requiring O2 as reagent. This biocatalytic process proceeds in pure organic medium, thus avoiding tedious extraction to isolate the highly water-soluble ε-caprolactone and enabling a dramatically simplified work-up by only centrifugal separation of lyophilized whole cells and solvent removal. This oxidation is accomplished using a tailor-made recombinant whole-cell catalyst containing an alcohol dehydrogenase and a cyclohexanone monooxygenase mutant.
PubMed: 38856824
DOI: 10.1002/cssc.202400073 -
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity Jun 2024Acamprosate is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved medication for the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, only a subset of patients achieves...
Acamprosate is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved medication for the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, only a subset of patients achieves optimal treatment outcomes. Currently, no biological measures are utilized to predict response to acamprosate treatment. We applied our established pharmaco-omics informed genomics strategy to identify potential biomarkers associated with acamprosate treatment response. Specifically, our previous open-label acamprosate clinical trial recruited 442 patients with AUD who were treated with acamprosate for three months. We first performed proteomics using baseline plasma samples to identify potential biomarkers associated with acamprosate treatment outcomes. Next, we applied our established "proteomics-informed genome-wide association study (GWAS)" research strategy, and identified 12 proteins, including interleukin-17 receptor B (IL17RB), associated with acamprosate treatment response. A GWAS for IL17RB concentrations identified several genome-wide significant signals. Specifically, the top hit single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs6801605 with a minor allele frequency of 38% in the European American population mapped 4 kilobase (Kb) upstream of IL17RB, and intron 1 of the choline dehydrogenase (CHDH) gene on chromosome 3 (p: 4.8E-20). The variant genotype (AA) for the SNP rs6801605 was associated with lower IL17RB protein expression. In addition, we identified a series of genetic variants in IL17RB that were associated with acamprosate treatment outcomes. Furthermore, the variantgenotypes for all of those IL17RB SNPs were protective for alcohol relapse. Finally, we demonstrated that the basal level of mRNA expression of IL17RB was inversely correlated with those of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) subunits, and a significantly higher expression of NF-κB subunits was observed in AUD patients who relapsed to alcohol use. In summary, this study illustrates that IL17RB genetic variants might contribute to acamprosate treatment outcomes. This series of studies represents an important step toward generating functional hypotheses that could be tested to gain insight into mechanisms underlying acamprosate treatment response phenotypes. (The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00662571).
PubMed: 38852760
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2024.06.007 -
European Archives of Psychiatry and... Jun 2024Ethanol is metabolized by alcohol dehydrogenase to acetaldehyde and induces cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), which generates reactive oxygen species that cause inflammatory...
Ethanol is metabolized by alcohol dehydrogenase to acetaldehyde and induces cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), which generates reactive oxygen species that cause inflammatory liver damage. Clomethiazole, a drug approved for alcohol withdrawal treatment (AWT) in some European countries, inhibits CYP2E1. We hypothesized that clomethiazole would lead to a faster reduction in oxidative stress, inflammatory cytokines, and liver enzymes compared to diazepam treatment. We analysed respective biomarkers in 50 patients undergoing AWT and 25 healthy individuals but found no statistical difference between the two medication groups over 3-5 days. Hence, our hypothesis was not confirmed during this observation period.
PubMed: 38851655
DOI: 10.1007/s00406-024-01835-7 -
Plant Physiology and Biochemistry : PPB Jul 2024Continuous cropping obstacles poses significant challenges for melon cultivation, with autotoxicity being a primary inducer. Suberization of cells or tissues is a vital...
Continuous cropping obstacles poses significant challenges for melon cultivation, with autotoxicity being a primary inducer. Suberization of cells or tissues is a vital mechanism for plant stress response. Our study aimed to elucidate the potential mechanism of root suberization in melon's response to autotoxicity. Cinnamic acid was used to simulate autotoxicity. Results showed that autotoxicity worsened the root morphology and activity of seedlings. Significant reductions were observed in root length, diameter, surface area, volume and fork number compared to the control in the later stage of treatment, with a decrease ranging from 20% to 50%. The decrease in root activity ranged from 16.74% to 29.31%. Root suberization intensified, and peripheral suberin deposition became more prominent. Autotoxicity inhibited phenylalanineammonia-lyase activity, the decrease was 50% at 16 h. The effect of autotoxicity on cinnamylalcohol dehydrogenase and cinnamate 4-hydroxylase activity showed an initial increase followed by inhibition, resulting in reductions of 34.23% and 44.84% at 24 h, respectively. The peroxidase activity only significantly increased at 24 h, with an increase of 372%. Sixty-three differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with root suberization were identified, with KCS, HCT, and CYP family showing the highest gene abundance. GO annotated DEGs into nine categories, mainly related to binding and catalytic activity. DEGs were enriched in 27 KEGG pathways, particularly those involved in keratin, corkene, and wax biosynthesis. Seven proteins, including C4H, were centrally positioned within the protein interaction network. These findings provide insights for improving stress resistance in melons and breeding stress-tolerant varieties.
Topics: Plant Roots; Cucurbitaceae; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Plant Proteins; Phenylalanine Ammonia-Lyase; Cinnamates; Trans-Cinnamate 4-Monooxygenase; Seedlings; Alcohol Oxidoreductases
PubMed: 38850731
DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2024.108787 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Jun 2024Alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) is a primate-specific enzyme which, uniquely among the ADH class 1 family, is highly expressed both in adipose tissue and liver. Its...
Alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) is a primate-specific enzyme which, uniquely among the ADH class 1 family, is highly expressed both in adipose tissue and liver. Its expression in adipose tissue is reduced in obesity and increased by insulin stimulation. Interference with expression has also been reported to impair adipocyte function. To better understand the role of ADH1B in adipocytes, we used CRISPR/Cas9 to delete in human adipose stem cells (ASC). Cells lacking ADH1B failed to differentiate into mature adipocytes manifested by minimal triglyceride accumulation and a marked reduction in expression of established adipocyte markers. As ADH1B is capable of converting retinol to retinoic acid (RA), we conducted rescue experiments. Incubation of ADH1B-deficient preadipocytes with 9-cis-RA, but not with all-transretinol, significantly rescued their ability to accumulate lipids and express markers of adipocyte differentiation. A homozygous missense variant in (p.Arg313Cys) was found in a patient with congenital lipodystrophy of unknown cause. This variant significantly impaired the protein's dimerization, enzymatic activity, and its ability to rescue differentiation in ADH1B-deficient ASC. The allele frequency of this variant in the Middle Eastern population suggests that it is unlikely to be a fully penetrant cause of severe lipodystrophy. In conclusion, ADH1B appears to play an unexpected, crucial and cell-autonomous role in human adipocyte differentiation by serving as a necessary source of endogenous retinoic acid.
Topics: Humans; Alcohol Dehydrogenase; Adipogenesis; Adipocytes; Tretinoin; Cell Differentiation; CRISPR-Cas Systems; Mutation, Missense; Adipose Tissue
PubMed: 38838011
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2319301121 -
Applied and Environmental Microbiology Jun 2024Ethylene glycol (EG) is a widely used industrial chemical with manifold applications and also generated in the degradation of plastics such as polyethylene...
Ethylene glycol (EG) is a widely used industrial chemical with manifold applications and also generated in the degradation of plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate. RHA1 (RHA1), a potential biocatalytic chassis, grows on EG. Transcriptomic analyses revealed four clusters of genes potentially involved in EG catabolism: the locus, predicted to encode ycofactocin-dependent lcohol egradation, including the catabolism of EG to glycolate; two GCL clusters, predicted to encode glycolate and glyoxylate catabolism; and the genes, predicted to specify mycofactocin biosynthesis. Bioinformatic analyses further revealed that the and genes are widely distributed in mycolic acid-producing bacteria such as RHA1. Neither Δ nor Δ RHA1 mutant strains grew on EG but grew on acetate. In resting cell assays, the Δ mutant depleted glycolaldehyde but not EG from culture media. These results indicate that encodes a mycofactocin-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase that initiates EG catabolism. In contrast to some mycobacterial strains, the genes did not appear to enable RHA1 to grow on methanol as sole substrate. Finally, a strain of RHA1 adapted to grow ~3× faster on EG contained an overexpressed gene, , predicted to encode an aldehyde dehydrogenase. When incubated with EG, this strain accumulated lower concentrations of glycolaldehyde than RHA1. Moreover, ecotopically expressed increased RHA1's tolerance for EG further suggesting that glycolaldehyde accumulation limits growth of RHA1 on EG. Overall, this study provides insights into the bacterial catabolism of small alcohols and aldehydes and facilitates the engineering of for the upgrading of plastic waste streams.IMPORTANCEEthylene glycol (EG), a two-carbon (C2) alcohol, is produced in high volumes for use in a wide variety of applications. There is burgeoning interest in understanding and engineering the bacterial catabolism of EG, in part to establish circular economic routes for its use. This study identifies an EG catabolic pathway in , a genus of bacteria well suited for biocatalysis. This pathway is responsible for the catabolism of methanol, a C1 feedstock, in related bacteria. Finally, we describe strategies to increase the rate of degradation of EG by increasing the transformation of glycolaldehyde, a toxic metabolic intermediate. This work advances the development of biocatalytic strategies to transform C2 feedstocks.
PubMed: 38837369
DOI: 10.1128/aem.00416-24