Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE)
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/9334
At the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE), multidisciplinary research teams develop beneficial uses for microbial biofilms and find solutions to industrially relevant biofilm problems. The CBE was established at Montana State University, Bozeman, in 1990 as a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. As part of the MSU College of Engineering, the CBE gives students a chance to get a head start on their careers by working on research teams led by world-recognized leaders in the biofilm field.
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Item Global transcriptional, physiological, and metabolite analyses of the responses of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough to salt adaptation(2009-12) He, Zhili; Zhou, Aifen; Baidoo, Edward E. K.; He, Q.; Joachimiak, M. P.; Benke, P.; Phan, R.; Mukhopadhyay, A.; Hemme, C. L.; Huang, K.; Alm, E. J.; Fields, Matthew W.; Wall, Judy D.; Stahl, David A.; Hazen, Terry C.; Keasling, J. D.; Arkin, Adam P.; Zhou, JizhongThe response of Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough to salt adaptation (long-term NaCl exposure) was examined by performing physiological, global transcriptional, and metabolite analyses. Salt adaptation was reflected by increased expression of genes involved in amino acid biosynthesis and transport, electron transfer, hydrogen oxidation, and general stress responses (e.g., heat shock proteins, phage shock proteins, and oxidative stress response proteins). The expression of genes involved in carbon metabolism, cell growth, and phage structures was decreased. Transcriptome profiles of D. vulgaris responses to salt adaptation were compared with transcriptome profiles of D. vulgaris responses to salt shock (short-term NaCl exposure). Metabolite assays showed that glutamate and alanine accumulated under salt adaptation conditions, suggesting that these amino acids may be used as osmoprotectants in D. vulgaris. Addition of amino acids (glutamate, alanine, and tryptophan) or yeast extract to the growth medium relieved salt-related growth inhibition. A conceptual model that links the observed results to currently available knowledge is proposed to increase our understanding of the mechanisms of D. vulgaris adaptation to elevated NaCl levels.Item Metagenomic insights into evolution of a heavy metal-contaminated groundwater microbial community(2010-02) Hemme, C. L.; Deng, Ye; Gentry, Terry J.; Fields, Matthew W.; Wu, Liyou; Barua, Sutapa; Barry, Kerrie; Tringe, Susannah G.; Watson, David B.; He, Zhili; Hazen, Terry C.; Tiedje, J. M.; Rubin, E. M.; Zhou, JizhongUnderstanding adaptation of biological communities to environmental change is a central issue in ecology and evolution. Metagenomic analysis of a stressed groundwater microbial community reveals that prolonged exposure to high concentrations of heavy metals, nitric acid and organic solvents (B50 years) has resulted in a massive decrease in species and allelic diversity as well as a significant loss of metabolic diversity. Although the surviving microbial community possesses all metabolic pathways necessary for survival and growth in such an extreme environment, its structure is very simple, primarily composed of clonal denitrifying c- and b-proteobacterial populations. The resulting community is overabundant in key genes conferring resistance to specific stresses including nitrate, heavy metals and acetone. Evolutionary analysis indicates that lateral gene transfer could have a key function in rapid response and adaptation to environmental contamination. The results presented in this study have important implications in understanding, assessing and predicting the impacts of human-induced activities on microbial communities ranging from human health to agriculture to environmental management, and their responses to environmental changes.Item Impact of elevated nitrate on sulfate-reducing bacteria: A comparative study of Desulfovibrio vulgaris(2010-05) He, Q.; He, Zhili; Joyner, D. C.; Joachimiak, M. P.; Price, M. N.; Yang, Zamin K.; Yen, Huei-Che B.; Hemme, C. L.; Chen, W.; Fields, Matthew W.; Stahl, David A.; Keasling, J. D.; Keller, M.; Arkin, Adam P.; Hazen, Terry C.; Wall, Judy D.; Zhou, JizhongSulfate-reducing bacteria have been extensively studied for their potential in heavy-metal bioremediation. However, the occurrence of elevated nitrate in contaminated environments has been shown to inhibit sulfate reduction activity. Although the inhibition has been suggested to result from the competition with nitrate-reducing bacteria, the possibility of direct inhibition of sulfate reducers by elevated nitrate needs to be explored. Using Desulfovibrio vulgaris as a model sulfate-reducing bacterium, functional genomics analysis reveals that osmotic stress contributed to growth inhibition by nitrate as shown by the upregulation of the glycine/betaine transporter genes and the relief of nitrate inhibition by osmoprotectants. The observation that significant growth inhibition was effected by 70mM NaNO3 but not by 70mM NaCl suggests the presence of inhibitory mechanisms in addition to osmotic stress. The differential expression of genes characteristic of nitrite stress responses, such as the hybrid cluster protein gene, under nitrate stress condition further indicates that nitrate stress response by D. vulgaris was linked to components of both osmotic and nitrite stress responses. The involvement of the oxidative stress response pathway, however, might be the result of a more general stress response. Given the low similarities between the response profiles to nitrate and other stresses, less-defined stress response pathways could also be important in nitrate stress, which might involve the shift in energy metabolism. The involvement of nitrite stress response upon exposure to nitrate may provide detoxification mechanisms for nitrite, which is inhibitory to sulfate-reducing bacteria, produced by microbial nitrate reduction as a metabolic intermediate and may enhance the survival of sulfate-reducing bacteria in environments with elevated nitrate level.Item Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 sensory box protein involved in aerobic and anoxic growth(2011-03) Sundararajan, Anitha; Kurowski, J.; Yan, T.; Klingeman, D. M.; Joachimiak, M. P.; Zhou, Jizhong; Naranjo, B.; Gralnick, J. A.; Fields, Matthew W.Although little is known of potential function for conserved signaling proteins, it is hypothesized that such proteins play important roles to coordinate cellular responses to environmental stimuli. In order to elucidate the function of a putative sensory box protein (PAS domains) in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, the physiological role of SO3389 was characterized. The predicted open reading frame (ORF) encodes a putative sensory box protein that has PAS, GGDEF, and EAL domains, and an in-frame deletion mutant was constructed (ΔSO3389) with approximately 95% of the ORF deleted. Under aerated conditions, wild-type and mutant cultures had similar growth rates, but the mutant culture had a lower growth rate under static, aerobic conditions. Oxygen consumption rates were lower for mutant cultures (1.5-fold), and wild-type cultures also maintained lower dissolved oxygen concentrations under aerated growth conditions. When transferred to anoxic conditions, the mutant did not grow with fumarate, iron(III), or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as electron acceptors. Biochemical assays demonstrated the expression of different c-type cytochromes as well as decreased fumarate reductase activity in the mutant transferred to anoxic growth conditions. Transcriptomic studies showed the inability of the mutant to up-express and down-express genes, including c-type cytochromes (e.g., SO4047/SO4048, SO3285/SO3286), reductases (e.g., SO0768, SO1427), and potential regulators (e.g., SO1329). The complemented strain was able to grow when transferred from aerobic to anoxic growth conditions with the tested electron acceptors. The modeled structure for the SO3389 PAS domains was highly similar to the crystal structures of FAD-binding PAS domains that are known O2/redox sensors. Based on physiological, genomic, and bioinformatic results, we suggest that the sensory box protein, SO3389, is an O2/redox sensor that is involved in optimization of aerobic growth and transitions to anoxia in S. oneidensis MR-1.Item Evaluation and remediation of bulk soap dispensers for biofilm(2012-01) Lorenz, Lindsey A.; Ramsay, Bradley D.; Goeres, Darla M.; Fields, Matthew W.; Zapka, Carrie A.; Macinga, David R.Recent studies evaluating bulk soap in public restroom soap dispensers have demonstrated up to 25% of open refillable bulk-soap dispensers were contaminated with ~6 log10(CFU ml-1) heterotrophic bacteria. In this study, plastic counter-mounted, plastic wall-mounted and stainless steel wall-mounted dispensers were analyzed for suspended and biofilm bacteria using total cell and viable plate counts. Independent of dispenser type or construction material, the bulk soap was contaminated with 4–7 log10(CFU ml-1) bacteria, while 4–6 log10(CFU cm-2) biofilm bacteria were isolated from the inside surfaces of the dispensers (n=6). Dispenser remediation studies, including a 10 min soak with 5000 mg 1-1 sodium hypochlorite, were then conducted to determine the efficacy of cleaning and disinfectant procedures against established biofilms. The testing showed that contamination of the bulk soap returned to pre-test levels within 7–14 days. These results demonstrate biofilm is present in contaminated bulk-soap dispensers and remediation studies to clean and sanitize the dispensers are temporary.Item Functional characterization of Crp/Fnr-Type global transcriptional regulators in Desulfovibrio vulgaris hildenborough(2012-02) Zhou, Aifen; Chen, Y. I.; Zane, Grant M.; He, Zhili; Hemme, C. L.; Joachimiak, M. P.; Baumohl, J. K.; He, Q.; Fields, Matthew W.; Arkin, Adam P.; Wall, Judy D.; Hazen, Terry C.; Zhou, JizhongCrp/Fnr-type global transcriptional regulators regulate various metabolic pathways in bacteria and typically function in response to environmental changes. However, little is known about the function of four annotated Crp/Fnr homologs (DVU0379, DVU2097, DVU2547, and DVU3111) in Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough. A systematic study using bioinformatic, transcriptomic, genetic, and physiological approaches was conducted to characterize their roles in stress responses. Similar growth phenotypes were observed for the crp/fnr deletion mutants under multiple stress conditions. Nevertheless, the idea of distinct functions of Crp/Fnr-type regulators in stress responses was supported by phylogeny, gene transcription changes, fitness changes, and physiological differences. The four D. vulgaris Crp/Fnr homologs are localized in three subfamilies (HcpR, CooA, and cc). The crp/fnr knockout mutants were well separated by transcriptional profiling using detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), and more genes significantly changed in expression in a ΔDVU3111 mutant (JW9013) than in the other three paralogs. In fitness studies, strain JW9013 showed the lowest fitness under standard growth conditions (i.e., sulfate reduction) and the highest fitness under NaCl or chromate stress conditions; better fitness was observed for a ΔDVU2547 mutant (JW9011) under nitrite stress conditions and a ΔDVU2097 mutant (JW9009) under air stress conditions. A higher Cr(VI) reduction rate was observed for strain JW9013 in experiments with washed cells. These results suggested that the four Crp/Fnr-type global regulators play distinct roles in stress responses of D. vulgaris. DVU3111 is implicated in responses to NaCl and chromate stresses, DVU2547 in nitrite stress responses, and DVU2097 in air stress responses.Item Quality-score refinement of SSU rRNA gene pyrosequencing differs across gene region for environmental samples(2012-04) Bowen De León, Kara; Ramsay, Bradley D.; Fields, Matthew W.Due to potential sequencing errors in pyrosequencing data, species richness and diversity indices of microbial systems can be miscalculated. The “traditional†sequence refinement method is not sufficient to account for overestimations (e.g., length, primer errors, ambiguous nucleotides). Recent in silico and single-organism studies have revealed the importance of sequence quality scores in the estimation of ecological indices; however, this is the first study to compare quality-score stringencies across four regions of the SSU rRNA gene sequence (V1V2, V3, V4, and V6) with actual environmental samples compared directly to corresponding clone libraries produced from the same primer sets. The nucleic acid sequences determined via pyrosequencing were subjected to varying quality-score cutoffs that ranged from 25 to 32, and at each quality-score cutoff, either 10 or 15%of the nucleotides were allowed to be below the cutoff. When species richness estimates were compared for the tested samples, the cutoff values of Q2715%, Q3010%, and Q3215% for V1V2, V4, and V6, respectively, estimated similar values as obtained with clone libraries and Sanger sequencing. The most stringent Q tested (Q3210%) was not enough to account for species richness inflation of the V3 region pyrosequence data. Results indicated that quality-score assessment greatly improved estimates of ecological indices for environmental samples (species richness and α-diversity) and that the effect of qualityscore filtering was region-dependent.Item Use of sodium bicarbonate to stimulate triacylglycerol accumulation in the chlorophyte Scenedesmus sp. and the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum(2012-10) Gardner, Robert D.; Cooksey, Keith E.; Mus, Florence; Macur, Richard E.; Moll, Karen M.; Eustance, E. O.; Carlson, Ross P.; Gerlach, Robin; Fields, Matthew W.; Peyton, Brent M.There is potential for algal-derived biofuel to help alleviate part of the world’s dependency on petroleum based fuels. However, research must still be done on strain selection, induction of triacylglycerol (TAG) accumulation, and fundamental algal metabolic studies, along with large-scale culturing techniques, harvesting, and biofuel/biomass processing. Here, we have advanced the knowledge on Scenedesmus sp. strain WC-1 by monitoring growth, pH, and TAG accumulation on a 14:10 light–dark cycle with atmospheric air or 5% CO2 in air (v/v) aeration. Under ambient aeration, there was a loss of pH-induced TAG accumulation, presumably due to TAG consumption during the lower culture pH observed during dark hours (pH 9.4). Under 5% CO2 aeration, the growth rate nearly doubled from 0.78 to 1.53 d−1, but the pH was circumneutral (pH 6.9) and TAG accumulation was minimal. Experiments were also performed with 5% CO2 during the exponential growth phase, which was then switched to aeration with atmospheric air when nitrate was close to depletion. These tests were run with and without the addition of 50 mM sodium bicarbonate. Cultures without added bicarbonate showed decreased growth rates with the aeration change, but there was no immediate TAG accumulation. The cultures with bicarbonate added immediately ceased cellular replication and rapid TAG accumulation was observed, as monitored by Nile Red fluorescence which has previously been correlated by gas chromatography to cellular TAG levels. Sodium bicarbonate addition (25 mM final concentration) was also tested with the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum strain Pt-1 and this organism also accumulated TAG.Item Potential role of multiple carbon fixation pathways during lipid accumulation in Phaeodactylum tricornutum(2012-06) Valenzuela, Jacob J.; Mazurie, Aurélien J.; Carlson, Ross P.; Gerlach, Robin; Cooksey, Keith E.; Peyton, Brent M.; Fields, Matthew W.BACKGROUND: Phaeodactylum tricornutum is a unicellular diatom in the class Bacillariophyceae. The full genome hasbeen sequenced (<30 Mb), and approximately 20 to 30% triacylglyceride (TAG) accumulation on a dry cell basis hasbeen reported under different growth conditions. To elucidate P. tricornutum gene expression profiles duringnutrient-deprivation and lipid-accumulation, cell cultures were grown with a nitrate to phosphate ratio of 20:1 (N:P)and whole-genome transcripts were monitored over time via RNA-sequence determination.RESULTS: The specific Nile Red (NR) fluorescence (NR fluorescence per cell) increased over time; however, theincrease in NR fluorescence was initiated before external nitrate was completely exhausted. Exogenous phosphatewas depleted before nitrate, and these results indicated that the depletion of exogenous phosphate might be anearly trigger for lipid accumulation that is magnified upon nitrate depletion. As expected, many of the genesassociated with nitrate and phosphate utilization were up-expressed. The diatom-specific cyclins cyc7 and cyc10were down-expressed during the nutrient-deplete state, and cyclin B1 was up-expressed during lipid-accumulationafter growth cessation. While many of the genes associated with the C3 pathway for photosynthetic carbonreduction were not significantly altered, genes involved in a putative C4 pathway for photosynthetic carbonassimilation were up-expressed as the cells depleted nitrate, phosphate, and exogenous dissolved inorganic carbon(DIC) levels. P. tricornutum has multiple, putative carbonic anhydrases, but only two were significantly up-expressed(2-fold and 4-fold) at the last time point when exogenous DIC levels had increased after the cessation of growth.Alternative pathways that could utilize HCO-3 were also suggested by the gene expression profiles (e.g., putativepropionyl-CoA and methylmalonyl-CoA decarboxylases).CONCLUSION: The results indicate that P. tricornutum continued carbon dioxide reduction when population growthwas arrested and different carbon-concentrating mechanisms were used dependent upon exogenous DIC levels.Based upon overall low gene expression levels for fatty acid synthesis, the results also suggest that the build-up ofprecursors to the acetyl-CoA carboxylases may play a more significant role in TAG synthesis rather than the actualenzyme levels of acetyl-CoA carboxylases per se. The presented insights into the types and timing of cellularresponses to inorganic carbon will help maximize photoautotrophic carbon flow to lipid accumulation.Item Transcriptomic and proteomic analyses of Desulfovibrio vulgaris biofilms: Carbon and energy flow contribute to the distinct biofilm growth state(2012-04) Clark, M. E.; He, Zhili; Redding, Alyssa M.; Joachimiak, M. P.; Keasling, J. D.; Zhou, Jizhong; Arkin, Adam P.; Mukhopadhyay, A.; Fields, Matthew W.Background: Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough is a sulfate-reducing bacterium (SRB) that is intensively studied in the context of metal corrosion and heavy-metal bioremediation, and SRB populations are commonly observed in pipe and subsurface environments as surface-associated populations. In order to elucidate physiological changes associated with biofilm growth at both the transcript and protein level, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses were done on mature biofilm cells and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The biofilms were cultivated with lactate and sulfate in a continuously fed biofilm reactor, and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations.Results: The functional genomic analysis demonstrated that biofilm cells were different compared to planktonic cells, and the majority of altered abundances for genes and proteins were annotated as hypothetical (unknown function), energy conservation, amino acid metabolism, and signal transduction. Genes and proteins that showed similar trends in detected levels were particularly involved in energy conservation such as increases in an annotated ech hydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase, pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, and rnf oxidoreductase, and the biofilm cells had elevated formate dehydrogenase activity. Several other hydrogenases and formate dehydrogenases also showed an increased protein level, while decreased transcript and protein levels were observed for putative coo hydrogenase as well as a lactate permease and hyp hydrogenases for biofilm cells. Genes annotated for amino acid synthesis and nitrogen utilization were also predominant changers within the biofilm state. Ribosomal transcripts and proteins were notably decreased within the biofilm cells compared to exponential-phase cells but were not as low as levels observed in planktonic, stationary-phase cells. Several putative, extracellular proteins (DVU1012, 1545) were also detected in the extracellular fraction from biofilm cells.Conclusions: Even though both the planktonic and biofilm cells were oxidizing lactate and reducing sulfate, the biofilm cells were physiologically distinct compared to planktonic growth states due to altered abundances of genes/proteins involved in carbon/energy flow and extracellular structures. In addition, average expression values for multiple rRNA transcripts and respiratory activity measurements indicated that biofilm cells were metabolically more similar to exponential-phase cells although biofilm cells are structured differently. The characterization of physiological advantages and constraints of the biofilm growth state for sulfate-reducing bacteria will provide insight into bioremediation applications as well as microbially-induced metal corrosion.