Chromosomal engineering of inducible isopropanol- butanol-ethanol production in .

The use of environmentally damaging petrochemical feedstocks can be displaced by fermentation processes based on engineered microbial chassis that recycle biomass-derived carbon into chemicals and fuels. The stable retention of introduced genes, designed to extend product range and/or increase productivity, is essential. Accordingly, we have created multiply marked auxotrophic strains of that provide distinct loci (, , , ) at which heterologous genes can be rapidly integrated using allele-coupled exchange (ACE).

Improving gene transfer in Clostridium pasteurianum through the isolation of rare hypertransformable variants.

Effective microbial metabolic engineering is reliant on efficient gene transfer. Here we present a simple screening strategy that may be deployed to isolate rare, hypertransformable variants. The procedure was used to increase the frequency of transformation of the solvent producing organism Clostridium pasteurianum by three to four orders of magnitude.

C. butyricum lipoteichoic acid inhibits the inflammatory response and apoptosis in HT-29 cells induced by S. aureus lipoteichoic acid.

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is one of microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) molecules of gram-positive bacteria. In this study, we demonstrated that Clostridium butyricum LTA (bLTA) significantly inhibited the inflammatory response and apoptosis induced by Staphylococcus aureus LTA (aLTA) in HT-29 cells. aLTA stimulated the inflammatory responses by activating a strong signal transduction cascade through NF-κB and ERK, but bLTA did not activate the signaling pathway.

Different effects of lipoteichoic acid from C. butyricum and S. aureus on inflammatory responses of HT-29 cells.

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is an important cell wall component of Gram-positive bacteria and represents one of the most critical microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) molecules. In this study, we isolated and purified LTA from Clostridium butyricum (bLTA) and compared its effects on the inflammatory responses of HT-29 cells with those of LTA from Staphylococcus aureus (aLTA). We also compared the effects of bLTA and aLTA on cell growth, proliferation, and apoptosis.

Targeted mutagenesis of the Clostridium acetobutylicum acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation pathway.

The production of the chemical solvents acetone and butanol by the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum was one of the first large-scale industrial processes to be developed, and in the first part of the last century ranked second in importance only to ethanol production. After a steep decline in its industrial use, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation process, with a particular emphasis on butanol production. In order to generate strains suitable for efficient use on an industrial scale, metabolic engineering is required to alter the AB ratio in favour of butanol, and eradicate the production of unwanted products of fermentation.

Curcumin suppresses PPARdelta expression and related genes in HT-29 cells.

Aim: To investigate the effects of curcumin on the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptordelta (PPARdelta) and related genes in HT-29 cells.

Methods: HT-29 cells were treated with curcumin (0-80 micromol/L) for 24 h. The effects of curcumin on the morphology of HT-29 cells were studied by Hoechst 33342 staining.

Evolution of Streptomyces pristinaespiralis for resistance and production of pristinamycin by genome shuffling.

Improvement of pristinamycin production by Streptomyces pristinaespiralis was performed by using recursive protoplast fusion and selection for improved resistance to the product antibiotic in a genome shuffling format. A 100-microg/ml pristinamycin resistant recombinant, G 4-17, was obtained after four rounds of protoplast fusion, and its production of pristinamycin reached 0.89 g/l, which was increased by 89.