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Transcriptomic analysis approach towards an improved tolerance of Escherichia coli to gallic acid stress

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Abstract

As a natural green additive, gallic acid has been widely used in food production. However, it can inhibit the physiological metabolism of Escherichia coli, which severely limits the ability and efficiency of gallic acid production. To explore the adaptation mechanism of E. coli under gallic acid stress and further explore the target of genetic modification, the effects of gallic acid stress on the fermentation characteristics of E. coli W3110 ATCC (82057) were investigated by cell biomass and cell morphometry. Moreover, transcriptome analysis was used to analyze the gene transcription level of E. coli W3110 ATCC (82057) to explore effects of gallic acid stress on important essential physiological processes. The results showed that under high concentration of gallic acid, the biomass of E. coli W3110 ATCC (82057) decreased significantly and the cells showed irregular morphology. Transcriptome analysis showed that E. coli W3110 ATCC (82057) improved its adaptive capacity through three strategies. First, genes of bamD, ompC, and ompF encoding outer membrane protein BamD, OmpC, and OmpC were decreased 5-, 31.1- and 8.1-fold, respectively, under gallic acid stress compared to the control, leading to the reduction of gallic acid absorption. Moreover, genes (mdtA, mdtB, mdtC, mdtD, mdtE, and mdtF) related to MdtABC multidrug efflux system and multidrug efflux pump MdtEF were up-regulated by1.0–53.0 folds, respectively, and genes (aaeA, aaeB, and aaeX) related to AaeAB efflux system were up-regulated by 8.0–13.3 folds, respectively, which contributed to the excretion of gallic acid. In addition, genes of acid fitness island also were up-regulated by different degrees under the stress of an acidic environment to maintain the stability of the intracellular environment. In conclusion, E. coli W3110 ATCC (82057) would enhance its tolerance to gallic acid by reducing absorption, increasing excretion, and maintaining intracellular environment stability. This study provides research ideas for the construction of engineered strains with high gallic acid yield.

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Data availability

The data sets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21808075), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20170459), and the Basic science in colleges and universities of Jiangsu Province (23KJB180001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian, 223003, China

    Lina Liu, Shijie Tang, Tingting Liu, Zihao Zhang, Xuefeng Wang, Muhammad Bilal, Shuai Liu, Hongzhen Luo & Yuping Zhao

  2. College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, Jiangsu, China

    Xuguo Duan

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  1. Lina Liu
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  2. Shijie Tang
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Contributions

LL conceived and designed the research. LL, ZZ, TL XW and ST conducted experiments. YZ and HL contributed new reagents or analytical tools. LL, SL and XD analyzed data. LL and MB wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lina Liu.

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Communicated by Yusuf Akhter.

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Liu, L., Tang, S., Liu, T. et al. Transcriptomic analysis approach towards an improved tolerance of Escherichia coli to gallic acid stress. Arch Microbiol 205, 372 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03708-4

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