Characterization of outer membrane proteins of Escherichia coli in response to phenol stress

Gram-negative bacteria are generally more tolerant to disinfectants than Gram-positive bacteria due to outer membrane (OM) barrier, but the tolerant mechanism is not well characterized. We have utilized comparative proteomic methodologies to characterize the OM proteins of E. coli K-12 K99+ in response to phenol stress and found that nine proteins were altered significantly. They were OM proteins OmpA, FadL, LamB, and OmpT, cytoplasmic-associated proteins AceA and EF-Tu, inner membrane protein AtpB, putative capsid protein Q8FewO, and unknown location protein Dps. They were reported here for the first time to be phenol-tolerant proteins. The alteration and functional characterization of the four OM proteins were further investigated using western blotting, genetically modified strains with gene deletion and gene complementation approaches. Our results characterized the functional OM proteins of E. coli in resistance to phenol, and provide novel insights into the mechanisms of bacterial disinfectant-tolerance and new drug targets for control of phenol-resistant bacteria.