Serine hydroxamate and the transcriptome of high cell density recombinant Escherichia coli MG1655

For more than 30 years, serine hydroxamate has been used to chemically stimulate a stringent response in Escherichia coli and other bacteria. These studies have elucidated numerous characteristics of the classical stringent response beyond the simple cellular response to an amino acid shortage, including phospholipid synthesis and protease upregulation. In this study, the effects of a serine hydroxamate addition on high-cell-density recombinant E. coli were examined and compared to the effects of recombinant protein production to determine overlaps, as recombinant protein production stress has often been attributed to amino acid shortages. Both the transcriptome and growth characteristics were evaluated and compared. The serine hydroxamate addition profoundly decreased the culture growth rate, whereas recombinant protein production did not. Conversely, the transcriptome profile of the recombinant E. coli cultures were relatively unaffected by the serine hydroxamate addition, yet recombinant protein production dramatically changed the transcriptome profile. A subset of the classical stringent response genes were effected by the serine hydroxamate addition, whereas recombinant protein production regulated numerous classical stringent response genes but not all. The genes that were regulated by the serine hydroxamate addition include numerous fatty acid synthesis genes, in agreement with altered phospholipids synthesis reports. These results indicate that recombinant protein production and the stringent response have many overlapping responses but are far from identical.