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Published on: April 15, 2019
L-alanine-induced germination in Bacillus licheniformis -the impact of native gerA sequences
Elisabeth H Madslien, Per Einar Granum, Janet M Blatny
1Department of Food Safety and Infection Biology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P, O, Box 8146 Dep, N-0033 Oslo, Norway. Toril.Lindback@nmbu.no.
Background:
L-alanine, acting through the GerA receptor, was recently found to be an efficient germinant in Bacillus licheniformis ATCC14580/DSM13.
Results:
In this study, we show that several of 46 examined B. licheniformis strains germinate remarkably slower than the type strain when exposed to L-alanine. These strains are not necessarily closely related, as determined by MLST (multi-locus sequence typing). Three of the slow-germinating strains were further examined in order to see whether nucleotide substitutions in the gerA sequences were responsible for the slow L-alanine germination. This was performed by complementing the transformable type strain derivate MW3ΔgerAA with gerA variants from the three slow-germinating strains; NVH1032, NVH1112 and NVH800.
Conclusions:
A wide selection of B. licheniformis strains was evaluated for L-alanine-induced germination efficiency. Our results show that gerA substitutions could only partially explain why spores of some B. licheniformis strains responded slower than others in the presence of L-alanine.
