Serum from Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome patients causes loss of coherence in cellular circadian rhythms.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a disabling disorder characterized by disrupted daily patterns of activity, sleep, and physiology. Past studies in ME/CFS patients have examined circadian rhythms, suggested that desynchronization between central and peripheral rhythms may be an important pathological feature, and identified associated changes in post-inflammatory cytokines such as transforming growth factor beta (TGFB). However, no previous studies have examined circadian rhythms in ME/CFS using cellular models or studied the role of cytokines on circadian rhythms.

The beta-ketoadipate pathway of Acinetobacter baylyi undergoes carbon catabolite repression, cross-regulation and vertical regulation, and is affected by Crc.

The degradation of many structurally diverse aromatic compounds in Acinetobacter baylyi is accomplished by the beta-ketoadipate pathway. In addition to specific induction of expression by certain aromatic compounds, this pathway is regulated by complex mechanisms at multiple levels, which are the topic of this study. Multiple operons feeding into the beta-ketoadipate pathway are controlled by carbon catabolite repression (CCR) caused by succinate plus acetate.

Aromatic degradative pathways in Acinetobacter baylyi underlie carbon catabolite repression.

Carbon catabolite repression is an important mechanism allowing efficient carbon source utilization. In the soil bacterium Acinetobacter baylyi, this mechanism has been shown to apply to the aromatic degradative pathways for the substrates protocatechuate, p-hydroxybenzoate and vanillate. In this investigation, transcriptional fusions with the gene for luciferase in the gene clusters for the degradation of benzyl esters, anthranilate, benzoate, hydroxycinnamates and dicarboxylates (are, ant, ben, hca and dca genes) were constructed and established in the chromosome of A.

Multiple-level regulation of genes for protocatechuate degradation in Acinetobacter baylyi includes cross-regulation.

The bacterium Acinetobacter baylyi uses the branched beta-ketoadipate pathway to metabolize aromatic compounds. Here, the multiple-level regulation of expression of the pca-qui operon encoding the enzymes for protocatechuate and quinate degradation was studied. It is shown that both activities of the IclR-type regulator protein PcaU at the structural gene promoter pcaIp, namely protocatechuate-dependent activation of pca-qui operon expression as well as repression in the absence of protocatechuate, can be observed in a different cellular background (Escherichia coli) and therefore are intrinsic to PcaU.