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Published on: August 28, 2014
The Bacillus secretion stress response is an indicator for alpha-amylase production levels
1Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Aims:
Overproduced alpha-amylases in Bacillus subtilis provoke a specific stress response involving the CssRS two-component system, which controls expression of the HtrA and HtrB proteases. Previously, the B. subtilis TepA protein was implicated in high-level alpha-amylase secretion. Our present studies were aimed at investigating a possible role of TepA in secretion stress management, and characterizing the intensity of the secretion stress response in relation to alpha-amylase production.
Methods And Results:
The expression of a transcriptional htrB-lacZ gene fusion, and the levels of alpha-amylase production were monitored simultaneously using tepA mutant B. subtilis strains. TepA was shown to be dispensable for secretion stress management. Importantly, however, the levels of htrB-lacZ expression can be correlated with the levels of alpha-amylase production.
Conclusion:
Our observations show that the secretion stress response can serve as an indicator for alpha-amylase production levels.
Significance And Impact Of Study:
Conceivably, this stress response can be employed to monitor the biotechnological production of various secretory proteins by the Bacillus cell factory.
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