Protoplast fusion in Bacillus species produces frequent, unbiased, genome-wide homologous recombination.

In eukaryotes, fine-scale maps of meiotic recombination events have greatly advanced our understanding of the factors that affect genomic variation patterns and evolution of traits. However, in bacteria that lack natural systems for sexual reproduction, unbiased characterization of recombination landscapes has remained challenging due to variable rates of genetic exchange and influence of natural selection. Here, to overcome these limitations and to gain a genome-wide view on recombination, we crossed Bacillus strains with different genetic distances using protoplast fusion. The offspring displayed complex inheritance patterns with one of the parents consistently contributing the major part of the chromosome backbone and multiple unselected fragments originating from the second parent. Our results demonstrate that this bias was in part due to the action of restriction-modification systems, whereas genome features like GC content and local nucleotide identity did not affect distribution of recombination events around the chromosome. Furthermore, we found that recombination occurred uniformly across the genome without concentration into hotspots. Notably, our results show that species-level genetic distance did not affect genome-wide recombination. This study provides a new insight into the dynamics of recombination in bacteria and a platform for studying recombination patterns in diverse bacterial species.

Improvements in Smartphone and Night Vision Imaging Technologies Enable Low Cost, On-Site Assays of Bioluminescent Cells.

Technologies enabling on-site environmental detection or medical diagnostics in resource-limited settings have a strong disruptive potential compared to current analytical approaches that require trained personnel in laboratories with immobile, resource intensive instrumentation. Handheld devices, such as smartphones, are now routinely produced with CPUs, RAM, wireless data transfer capabilities, and high-resolution complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) cameras capable of supporting the capture and processing of bioluminescent signals. In theory, combining the capabilities of these devices with continuously bioluminescent human cell-based bioreporters would allow them to replicate the functionality of more expensive, more complex, and less flexible platforms while supporting human-relevant conclusions. In this work, we compare the performance of smartphone (CMOS) and night vision (image intensifier) devices with in vivo (CCD camera), and in vitro (photomultiplier tube) laboratory instrumentation for monitoring signal dynamics from continuously bioluminescent human cellular models under toxic, stable, and induced expression scenarios. All systems detected bioluminescence from cells at common plating densities. While the in vivo and in vitro systems were more sensitive and detected signal dynamics representing cellular health changes earlier, the night vision and smartphone systems also detected these changes with relatively similar coefficients of variation and linear detection capabilities. The smartphone system did not detect transcriptional induction. The night vision system did detect transcriptional activation, but was less sensitive than the in vivo or in vitro systems and required a stronger induction before the change could be resolved.

Screening for androgen agonists using autonomously bioluminescent HEK293 reporter cells.

Due to the public health concerns of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, there is an increasing demand to develop improved high-throughput detection assays for enhanced exposure control and risk assessment. A substrate-free, autobioluminescent HEK293ARE/Gal4-Lux assay was developed to screen compounds for their ability to induce androgen receptor (AR)-mediated transcriptional activation. The assay was validated against a group of 40 recommended chemicals and achieved an overall 87.5% accuracy in qualitatively classifying positive and negative AR agonists. The HEK293ARE/Gal4-Lux assay was demonstrated as a suitable tool for Tier 1 AR agonist screening. By eliminating exogenous substrate, this assay provided a significant advantage over traditional reporter assays by enabling higher-throughput screening with reduced testing costs while maintaining detection accuracy.

Evaluation of chromosomal insertion loci in the Pseudomonas putida KT2440 genome for predictable biosystems design.

The development of Pseudomonas strains for industrial production of fuels and chemicals will require the integration of heterologous genes and pathways into the chromosome. Finding the most appropriate integration site to maximize strain performance is an essential part of the strain design process. We characterized seven chromosomal loci in Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for integration of a fluorescent protein expression construct. Insertion in five of the loci did not affect growth rate, but fluorescence varied by up to 27-fold. Three sites displaying a diversity of phenotypes with the fluorescent reporter were also chosen for the integration of a gene encoding a muconate importer. Depending on the integration locus, expression of the importer varied by approximately 3-fold and produced significant phenotypic differences. This work demonstrates the impact of the integration location on host viability, gene expression, and overall strain performance.

Real-time tracking of stem cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation with autonomous bioluminescence imaging.

BACKGROUND: Luminescent reporter proteins are vital tools for visualizing cells and cellular activity. Among the current toolbox of bioluminescent systems, only bacterial luciferase has genetically defined luciferase and luciferin synthesis pathways that are functional at the mammalian cell temperature optimum of 37 °C and have the potential for in vivo applications. However, this system is not functional in all cell types, including stem cells, where the ability to monitor continuously and in real-time cellular processes such as differentiation and proliferation would be particularly advantageous. RESULTS: We report that artificial subdivision of the bacterial luciferin and luciferase pathway subcomponents enables continuous or inducible bioluminescence in pluripotent and mesenchymal stem cells when the luciferin pathway is overexpressed with a 20-30:1 ratio. Ratio-based expression is demonstrated to have minimal effects on phenotype or differentiation while enabling autonomous bioluminescence without requiring external excitation. We used this method to assay the proliferation, viability, and toxicology responses of iPSCs and showed that these assays are comparable in their performance to established colorimetric assays. Furthermore, we used the continuous luminescence to track stem cell progeny post-differentiation. Finally, we show that tissue-specific promoters can be used to report cell fate with this system. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings expand the utility of bacterial luciferase and provide a new tool for stem cell research by providing a method to easily enable continuous, non-invasive bioluminescent monitoring in pluripotent cells.

Continuous and Real-Time In Vivo Autobioluminescent Imaging in a Mouse Model.

In vivo small animal bioluminescent imaging has become an indispensable technique for interrogating the localization, health, and functionality of implanted cells within the complex environment of a living organism. However, this task can be daunting for even the most experienced researchers because it requires multiple animal handling steps and produces differential output signal characteristics in response to a number of experimental design variables. The recent emergence of autobioluminescent cells, which autonomously and continuously produce bioluminescent output signals without external stimulation, has the potential to simplify this process, reduce variability by removing human-induced error, and improve animal welfare by reducing the number of required needlesticks per procedure. This protocol details the implantation and imaging of autobioluminescent cells within a mouse model to demonstrate how cells implanted from a single injection can be imaged repeatedly across any post-implantation timescale without the need for further human-animal interaction or signal activation steps. This approach provides a facile means to continuously monitor implanted cellular output signals in real-time for extended time periods.

Horizontal transfer of a pathway for coumarate catabolism unexpectedly inhibits purine nucleotide biosynthesis.

A microbe's ecological niche and biotechnological utility are determined by its specific set of co-evolved metabolic pathways. The acquisition of new pathways, through horizontal gene transfer or genetic engineering, can have unpredictable consequences. Here we show that two different pathways for coumarate catabolism failed to function when initially transferred into Escherichia coli. Using laboratory evolution, we elucidated the factors limiting activity of the newly acquired pathways and the modifications required to overcome these limitations. Both pathways required host mutations to enable effective growth with coumarate, but the necessary mutations differed. In one case, a pathway intermediate inhibited purine nucleotide biosynthesis, and this inhibition was relieved by single amino acid replacements in IMP dehydrogenase. A strain that natively contains this coumarate catabolism pathway, Acinetobacter baumannii, is resistant to inhibition by the relevant intermediate, suggesting that natural pathway transfers have faced and overcome similar challenges. Molecular dynamics simulation of the wild type and a representative single-residue mutant provide insight into the structural and dynamic changes that relieve inhibition. These results demonstrate how deleterious interactions can limit pathway transfer, that these interactions can be traced to specific molecular interactions between host and pathway, and how evolution or engineering can alleviate these limitations.

Improving Estrogenic Compound Screening Efficiency by Using Self-Modulating, Continuously Bioluminescent Human Cell Bioreporters Expressing a Synthetic Luciferase.

A synthetic bacterial luciferase-based autobioluminescent bioreporter, HEK293ERE/Gal4-Lux, was developed in a human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cell line for the surveillance of chemicals displaying endocrine disrupting activity. Unlike alternative luminescent reporters, this bioreporter generates bioluminescence autonomously without requiring an external light-activating chemical substrate or cellular destruction. The bioreporter's performance was validated against a library of 76 agonistic and antagonistic estrogenic endocrine disruptor chemicals and demonstrated reproducible half maximal effective concentration (EC50) values meeting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines for Tier 1 endocrine disrupting chemical screening assays. For model compounds, such as the estrogen receptor (ER) agonist 17ß-estradiol, HEK293ERE/Gal4-Lux demonstrated an EC50 value (7.9 × 10-12 M) comparable to that of the current EPA-approved HeLa-9903 firefly luciferase-based estrogen receptor transcription assay (4.6 × 10-12 M). Screening against an expanded array of common ER agonists likewise produced similar relative effect potencies as compared with existing assays. The self-initiated autobioluminescent signal of the bioreporter permitted facile monitoring of the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals, which decreased the cost and hands-on time required to perform these assays. These characteristics make the HEK293ERE/Gal4-Lux bioreporter potentially suitable as a high-throughput human cell-based assay for screening estrogenic activity.

A rapid and reagent-free bioassay for the detection of dioxin-like compounds and other aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonists using autobioluminescent yeast.

An autonomously bioluminescent Saccharomyces cerevisiae BLYAhS bioreporter was developed in this study for the simple and rapid detection of dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonists. This recombinant yeast reporter was based on a synthetic bacterial luciferase reporter gene cassette (lux) that can produce the luciferase as well as the enzymes capable of self-synthesizing the requisite substrates for bioluminescent production from endogenous cellular metabolites. As a result, bioluminescent signal production is generated continuously and autonomously without cell lysis or exogenous reagent addition. By linking the expression of the autobioluminescent lux reporter cassette to AhR activation via the use of a dioxin-responsive promoter, the S. cerevisiae BLYAhS bioreporter emitted a bioluminescent signal in response to DLC exposure in a dose-responsive manner. The model dioxin, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), could be detected within 4 h with a half maximal effective concentration (EC50) of ~ 8.1 nM and a lower detection limit of 500 pM. The autobioluminescent response of BLYAhS to other AhR agonists, including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran (TCDF), polychlorinated bisphenyl congener 126 (PCB-126) and 169 (PCB-169), 1,2,3,6,7,8-hexachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (HxCDD), 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-heptachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (HpCDD), benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), and ß-naphthoflavone (bNF), were also characterized in this study. The non-destructive and reagent-free nature of the BLYAhS reporter assay facilitated near-continuous, automated signal acquisition without additional hands-on effort and cost, providing a simple and cost-effective method for rapid DLC detection.

Co-Cultured Continuously Bioluminescent Human Cells as Bioreporters for the Detection of Prodrug Therapeutic Impact Pre- and Post-Metabolism.

Modern drug discovery workflows require assay systems capable of replicating the complex interactions of multiple tissue types, but that can still function under high throughput conditions. In this work, we evaluate the use of substrate-free autobioluminescence in human cell lines to support the performance of these assays with reduced economical and logistical restrictions relative to substrate-requiring bioluminescent reporter systems. The use of autobioluminescence was found to support assay functionality similar to existing luciferase reporter targets. The autobioluminescent assay format was observed to correlate strongly with general metabolic activity markers such as ATP content and the presence of reactive oxygen species, but not with secondary markers such as glutathione depletion. At the transcriptional level, autobioluminescent dynamics were most closely associated with expression of the CYP1A1 phase I detoxification pathway. These results suggest constitutively autobioluminescent cells can function as general metabolic activity bioreporters, while pairing expression of the autobioluminescent phenotype to detoxification pathway specific promoters could create more specific sensor systems.

Draft Genome Sequence of the Oleaginous Yeast Cryptococcus curvatus ATCC 20509.

Cryptococcus curvatus ATCC 20509 is a commonly used nonmodel oleaginous yeast capable of converting a variety of carbon sources into fatty acids. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of this popular organism to provide a means for more in-depth studies of its fatty acid production potential.

Draft Genome Sequence of Cryptococcus terricola JCM 24523, an Oleaginous Yeast Capable of Expressing Exogenous DNA.

Cryptococcus terricola JCM 24523 has recently been identified as an oleaginous yeast capable of converting starch into fatty acids. This draft genome sequence provides a platform for elucidating its fatty acid production potential and supporting comparisons with other oleaginous species.

The Expanding Toolbox of In Vivo Bioluminescent Imaging.

In vivo bioluminescent imaging (BLI) permits the visualization of engineered bioluminescence from living cells and tissues to provide a unique perspective toward the understanding of biological processes as they occur within the framework of an authentic in vivo environment. The toolbox of in vivo BLI includes an inventory of luciferase compounds capable of generating bioluminescent light signals along with sophisticated and powerful instrumentation designed to detect and quantify these light signals non-invasively as they emit from the living subject. The information acquired reveals the dynamics of a wide range of biological functions that play key roles in the physiological and pathological control of disease and its therapeutic management. This mini review provides an overview of the tools and applications central to the evolution of in vivo BLI as a core technology in the preclinical imaging disciplines.

Rapid detection of microbial cell abundance in aquatic systems.

The detection and quantification of naturally occurring microbial cellular densities is an essential component of environmental systems monitoring. While there are a number of commonly utilized approaches for monitoring microbial abundance, capacitance-based biosensors represent a promising approach because of their low-cost and label-free detection of microbial cells, but are not as well characterized as more traditional methods. Here, we investigate the applicability of enhanced alternating current electrokinetics (ACEK) capacitive sensing as a new application for rapidly detecting and quantifying microbial cellular densities in cultured and environmentally sourced aquatic samples. ACEK capacitive sensor performance was evaluated using two distinct and dynamic systems - the Great Australian Bight and groundwater from the Oak Ridge Reservation in Oak Ridge, TN. Results demonstrate that ACEK capacitance-based sensing can accurately determine microbial cell counts throughout cellular concentrations typically encountered in naturally occurring microbial communities (10(3)-10(6) cells/mL). A linear relationship was observed between cellular density and capacitance change correlations, allowing a simple linear curve fitting equation to be used for determining microbial abundances in unknown samples. This work provides a foundation for understanding the limits of capacitance-based sensing in natural environmental samples and supports future efforts focusing on evaluating the robustness ACEK capacitance-based within aquatic environments.

Real-time toxicity and metabolic activity tracking of human cells exposed to Escherichia coli O157:H7 in a mixed consortia.

Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a significant human pathogen that is continually responsible for sickness, and even death, on a worldwide scale. While the pathology of E. coli O157:H7 infection has been well studied, the effect of it's multiple resulting cytotoxic mechanisms on host metabolic activity has not been well characterized. To develop a more thorough understanding of these effects, several bioluminescence assays were evaluated for their ability to track both toxicity and host metabolic activity levels in real-time. The use of continuously autobioluminescent human cells was determined to be the most favorable method for tracking these metrics, as its self-sufficient autobioluminescent phenotype was unaffected by the presence of the infecting bacteria and its signal could be measured without cellular destruction. Using this approach, it was determined that infection with as few as 10 CFU of E. coli O157:H7 could elicit cytotoxic effects. Regardless of the initial infective dose, an impact on metabolic expression was not observed until bacterial populations reached levels between 5 × 10(5) and 1 × 10(6) (R(2) = 0.933), indicating that a critical bacterial infection level must be reached prior to the onset of cytotoxic effects. Supporting this hypothesis, it was found that cells displaying infection-mediated metabolic activity reductions could recover to wild type metabolic activity levels if the infecting bacteria were removed prior to cell death. These results indicate that rapid treatment of E. coli O157:H7 infection could serve to limit host metabolic impact and reduce overall host cell death.

Toxicological challenges to microbial bioethanol production and strategies for improved tolerance.

Bioethanol production output has increased steadily over the last two decades and is now beginning to become competitive with traditional liquid transportation fuels due to advances in engineering, the identification of new production host organisms, and the development of novel biodesign strategies. A significant portion of these efforts has been dedicated to mitigating the toxicological challenges encountered across the bioethanol production process. From the release of potentially cytotoxic or inhibitory compounds from input feedstocks, through the metabolic co-synthesis of ethanol and potentially detrimental byproducts, and to the potential cytotoxicity of ethanol itself, each stage of bioethanol production requires the application of genetic or engineering controls that ensure the host organisms remain healthy and productive to meet the necessary economies required for large scale production. In addition, as production levels continue to increase, there is an escalating focus on the detoxification of the resulting waste streams to minimize their environmental impact. This review will present the major toxicological challenges encountered throughout each stage of the bioethanol production process and the commonly employed strategies for reducing or eliminating potential toxic effects.

The emergence of Clostridium thermocellum as a high utility candidate for consolidated bioprocessing applications.

First isolated in 1926, Clostridium thermocellum has recently received increased attention as a high utility candidate for use in consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) applications. These applications, which seek to process lignocellulosic biomass directly into useful products such as ethanol, are gaining traction as economically feasible routes toward the production of fuel and other high value chemical compounds as the shortcomings of fossil fuels become evident. This review evaluates C. thermocellum's role in this transitory process by highlighting recent discoveries relating to its genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic responses to varying biomass sources, with a special emphasis placed on providing an overview of its unique, multivariate enzyme cellulosome complex and the role that this structure performs during biomass degradation. Both naturally evolved and genetically engineered strains are examined in light of their unique attributes and responses to various biomass treatment conditions, and the genetic tools that have been employed for their creation are presented. Several future routes for potential industrial usage are presented, and it is concluded that, although there have been many advances to significantly improve C. thermocellum's amenability to industrial use, several hurdles still remain to be overcome as this unique organism enjoys increased attention within the scientific community.

Detection of organic compounds with whole-cell bioluminescent bioassays.

Natural and manmade organic chemicals are widely deposited across a diverse range of ecosystems including air, surface water, groundwater, wastewater, soil, sediment, and marine environments. Some organic compounds, despite their industrial values, are toxic to living organisms and pose significant health risks to humans and wildlife. Detection and monitoring of these organic pollutants in environmental matrices therefore is of great interest and need for remediation and health risk assessment. Although these detections have traditionally been performed using analytical chemical approaches that offer highly sensitive and specific identification of target compounds, these methods require specialized equipment and trained operators, and fail to describe potential bioavailable effects on living organisms. Alternatively, the integration of bioluminescent systems into whole-cell bioreporters presents a new capacity for organic compound detection. These bioreporters are constructed by incorporating reporter genes into catabolic or signaling pathways that are present within living cells and emit a bioluminescent signal that can be detected upon exposure to target chemicals. Although relatively less specific compared to analytical methods, bioluminescent bioassays are more cost-effective, more rapid, can be scaled to higher throughput, and can be designed to report not only the presence but also the bioavailability of target substances. This chapter reviews available bacterial and eukaryotic whole-cell bioreporters for sensing organic pollutants and their applications in a variety of sample matrices.

Expression of a humanized viral 2A-mediated lux operon efficiently generates autonomous bioluminescence in human cells.

BACKGROUND: Expression of autonomous bioluminescence from human cells was previously reported to be impossible, suggesting that all bioluminescent-based mammalian reporter systems must therefore require application of a potentially influential chemical substrate. While this was disproven when the bacterial luciferase (lux) cassette was demonstrated to function in a human cell, its expression required multiple genetic constructs, was functional in only a single cell type, and generated a significantly reduced signal compared to substrate-requiring systems. Here we investigate the use of a humanized, viral 2A-linked lux genetic architecture for the efficient introduction of an autobioluminescent phenotype across a variety of human cell lines. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The lux cassette was codon optimized and assembled into a synthetic human expression operon using viral 2A elements as linker regions. Human kidney, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer cell lines were both transiently and stably transfected with the humanized operon and the resulting autobioluminescent phenotype was evaluated using common imaging instrumentation. Autobioluminescent cells were screened for cytotoxic effects resulting from lux expression and their utility as bioreporters was evaluated through the demonstration of repeated monitoring of single populations over a prolonged period using both a modified E-SCREEN assay for estrogen detection and a classical cytotoxic compound detection assay for the antibiotic Zeocin. Furthermore, the use of self-directed bioluminescent initiation in response to target detection was assessed to determine its amenability towards deployment as fully autonomous sensors. In all cases, bioluminescent measurements were supported with traditional genetic and transcriptomic evaluations. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results demonstrate that the viral 2A-linked, humanized lux genetic architecture successfully produced autobioluminescent phenotypes in all cell lines tested without the induction of cytotoxicity. This autobioluminescent phenotype allowed for repeated interrogation of populations and self-directed control of bioluminescent activation with detection limits and EC50 values similar to traditional reporter systems, making the autobioluminescent cells amenable to automated monitoring and significantly reducing the time and cost required to perform bioluminescent workflows.

Real-time bioluminescent tracking of cellular population dynamics.

Cellular population dynamics are routinely monitored across many diverse fields for a variety of purposes. In general, these dynamics are assayed either through the direct counting of cellular aliquots followed by extrapolation to the total population size, or through the monitoring of signal intensity from any number of externally stimulated reporter proteins. While both viable methods, here we describe a novel technique that allows for the automated, non-destructive tracking of cellular population dynamics in real-time. This method, which relies on the detection of a continuous bioluminescent signal produced through expression of the bacterial luciferase gene cassette, provides a low cost, low time-intensive means for generating additional data compared to alternative methods.