Monitoring of meat quality and change-point detection by a sensor array and profiling of bacterial communities.

Background: Real-time monitoring of food consumer quality remains challenging due to diverse bio-chemical processes taking place in the food matrices, and hence it requires accurate analytical methods. Thresholds to determine spoiled food are often difficult to set. The existing analytical methods are too complicated for rapid in situ screening of foodstuff.

Phylogeny and structural modeling of the transcription factor CsqR (YihW) from Escherichia coli.

CsqR (YihW) is a local transcription factor that controls expression of yih genes involved in degradation of sulfoquinovose in Escherichia coli. We recently showed that expression of the respective gene cassette might be regulated by lactose. Here, we explore the phylogenetic and functional traits of CsqR.

Sense and antisense RNA products of the gene can affect motility and chemotaxis acting independent of the UxuR protein.

Small non-coding and antisense RNAs are widespread in all kingdoms of life, however, the diversity of their functions in bacteria is largely unknown. Here, we study RNAs synthesised from divergent promoters located in the 3'-end of the gene, encoding transcription factor regulating hexuronate metabolism in These overlapping promoters were predicted with rather high scores, effectively bound RNA polymerase and and were capable of initiating transcription in sense and antisense directions. The genome-wide correlation between promoter scores and RNA polymerase binding and was higher for promoters located on the antisense strands of the genes, however, sense promoters within the gene were more active.

Differential Impact of Hexuronate Regulators ExuR and UxuR on the Proteome.

ExuR and UxuR are paralogous proteins belonging to the GntR family of transcriptional regulators. Both are known to control hexuronic acid metabolism in a variety of Gammaproteobacteria but the relative impact of each of them is still unclear. Here, we apply 2D difference electrophoresis followed by mass-spectrometry to characterise the changes in the proteome in response to a or deletion.