Abstract
This study aimed to improve the acid tolerance of Lactobacillus casei Zhang and compare the stress response of the parental strain and the acid-resistant mutant during acidic conditions. Adaptive evolution was conducted for 70 days to generate acid-tolerant L. casei. The evolved mutant lb-2 exhibited more than a 60% increase in biomass as well as a 13.6 and 65.6% increase in concentrations of lactate and acetate, respectively, when cultured at pH 4.3 for 64 h. Lactic acid tolerances of the parental strain and the evolved mutant were determined. As a result, the evolved mutant showed a 318-fold higher survival rate than that of the parental strain. Physiological analysis showed that the evolved mutant exhibited higher intracellular pH (pHi), NH4 + concentration and lower inner membrane permeability than that of the parental strain during acid stress. Moreover, higher amounts of intracellular arginine and aspartate were also detected in lb-2 under acid stress. Validation of the relationship between the acid tolerance and the intracellular arginine and aspartate accumulation was conducted by experiments that showed the survival of L. casei at pH 3.3 was improved 1.36-, 2.10-, or 3.42-fold by the addition of 50 mM aspartate, arginine or both of them, respectively. Taken together, results presented here not only supply an effective way to select acid-resistant strains for the food industry, but also contribute to reveal the mechanisms of acid tolerance and provide new strategies to enhance the industrial utility and health-promoting properties of this species.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kleerebezem, M. and E. E. Vaughan (2009) Probiotic and gut lactobacilli and bifidobacteria: Molecular approaches to study diversity and activity. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 63: 269–290.
De Angelis, M. and M. Gobbetti (2004) Environmental stress responses in Lactobacillus: A review. Proteomics 4: 106–122.
Parvez, S., K. A. Malik, S. A. Kang, and H. Y. Kim (2006) Probiotics and their fermented food products are beneficial for health. J. Appl. Microbiol. 100: 1171–1185.
Zhu, Y., Y. Zhang, and Y. Li (2009) Understanding the industrial application potential of lactic acid bacteria through genomics. Appl. Microbiol. Biot. 83: 597–610.
Rochat, T., J. J. Gratadoux, A. Gruss, G. Corthier, E. Maguin, P. Langella, and M. van de Guchte (2006) Production of a heterologous nonheme catalase by Lactobacillus casei: An efficient tool for removal of H2O2 and protection of Lactobacillus bulgaricus from oxidative stress in milk. Appl. Environ. Microb. 72: 5143–5149.
Serrazanetti, D. I., M. E. Guerzoni, A. Corsetti, and R. Vogel (2009) Metabolic impact and potential exploitation of the stress reactions in lactobacilli. Food Microbiol. 26: 700–711.
Choi, S., D. Baumler, and C. Kaspar (2000) Contribution of dps to acid stress tolerance and oxidative stress tolerance in Escherichia coli O157: H7. Appl. Environ. Microb. 66: 3911–3916.
Warnecke, T. and R. T. Gill (2005) Organic acid toxicity, tolerance, and production in Escherichia coli biorefining applications. Microb. Cell Fact. 4: 25–32.
Matsumoto, M., H. Ohishi, and Y. Benno (2004) H+-ATPase activity in Bifidobacterium with special reference to acid tolerance. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 93: 109–113.
Lorca, G. L. and G. F. de Valdez (2001) Acid tolerance mediated by membrane ATPases in Lactobacillus acidophilus. Biotechnol. Lett. 23: 777–780.
Lebeer, S., J. Vanderleyden, and S. C. J. De Keersmaecker (2008) Genes and molecules of lactobacilli supporting probiotic action. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. R. 72: 728–764.
Hutkins, R. W. and N. L. Nannen (1993) pH homeostasis in lactic acid bacteria. J. Dairy Sci. 76: 2354–2365.
Siegumfeldt, H., K. B. Rechinger, and M. Jakobsen (2000) Dynamic changes of intracellular pH in individual lactic acid bacterium cells in response to a rapid drop in extracellular pH. Appl. Environ. Microb. 66: 2330–2335.
Zhang, Y. M. and C. O. Rock (2008) Membrane lipid homeostasis in bacteria. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 6: 222–233.
Fong, S. S., A. R. Joyce, and B. O. Palsson (2005) Parallel adaptive evolution cultures of Escherichia coli lead to convergent growth phenotypes with different gene expression states. Genome Res. 15: 1365–1372.
Miller, S. R. and R. W. Castenholz (2000) Evolution of thermotolerance in hot spring cyanobacteria of the genus Synechococcus. Appl. Environ. Microb. 66: 4222–4229.
Breeuwer, P., J. Drocourt, F. Rombouts, and T. Abee (1996) A novel method for continuous determination of the intracellular pH in bacteria with the internally conjugated fluorescent probe 5 (and 6-)-carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester. Appl. Environ. Microb. 62: 178–183.
Fountoulakis, M. and H. Lahm (1998) Hydrolysis and amino acid composition analysis of proteins. J. Chromatogr. A 826: 109–134.
Neves, R., P. Moraes, M. Saleh, V. Loureiro, F. Silva, M. Barros, C. Padilha, S. Jorge, and P. Padilha (2009) FAAS determination of metal nutrients in fish feed after ultrasound extraction. Food Chem. 113: 679–683.
Fu, R., J. Chen, and Y. Li (2005) Heterologous leaky production of transglutaminase in Lactococcus lactis significantly enhances the growth performance of the host. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71: 8911–8919.
Lehrer, R. I., A. Barton, and T. Ganz (1988) Concurrent assessment of inner and outer membrane permeabilization and bacteriolysis in E. coli by multiple-wavelength spectrophotometry. J. Immunol. Methods 108: 153–158.
Len, M. C. L., D. W. S. Harty, and N. A. Jacques (2004) Proteome analysis of Streptococcus mutans metabolic phenotype during acid tolerance. Microbiol. 150: 1353–1366.
O’sullivan, E. and S. Condon (1997) Intracellular pH is a major factor in the induction of tolerance to acid and other stresses in Lactococcus lactis. Appl. Environ. Microb. 63: 4210–4215.
Barker, C. and S. Park (2001) Sensitization of Listeria monocytogenes to low pH, organic acids, and osmotic stress by ethanol. Appl. Environ. Microb. 67: 1594–1600.
Fernández, M. and M. Zúñiga (2006) Amino acid catabolic pathways of lactic acid bacteria. Crit. Rev. Microbiol. 32: 155–183.
Marquis, R., G. Bender, D. Murray, and A. Wong (1987) Arginine deiminase system and bacterial adaptation to acid environments. Appl. Environ. Microb. 53: 198–200.
Curran, T., J. Lieou, and R. Marquis (1995) Arginine deiminase system and acid adaptation of oral streptococci. Appl. Environ. Microb. 61: 4494–4496.
Casiano-Colon, A. and R. Marquis (1988) Role of the arginine deiminase system in protecting oral bacteria and an enzymatic basis for acid tolerance. Appl. Environ. Microb. 54: 1318–1324.
Poolman, B., A. Driessen, and W. Konings (1987) Regulation of arginine-ornithine exchange and the arginine deiminase pathway in Streptococcus lactis. J. Bacteriol. 169: 5597–5604.
Sánchez, B., M. C. Champomier-Vergès, M. C. Collado, P. Anglade, F. Baraige, Y. Sanz, C. G. de los Reyes-Gavilan, A. Margolles, and M. Zagorec (2007) Low-pH adaptation and the acid tolerance response of Bifidobacterium longum Biotype longum. Appl. Environ. Microb. 73: 6450–6459.
Portnoy, V. A., D. Bezdan, and K. Zengler (2011) Adaptive laboratory evolution—harnessing the power of biology for metabolic engineering. Curr. Opin. Biotech. 22: 590–594.
Wang, Y., R. Manow, C. Finan, J. Wang, E. Garza, and S. Zhou (2011) Adaptive evolution of nontransgenic Escherichia coli KC01 for improved ethanol tolerance and homoethanol fermentation from xylose. J. Ind. Microbiol. Biot. 38: 1371–1377.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Two authors contributed equally to this study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, J., Wu, C., Du, G. et al. Enhanced acid tolerance in Lactobacillus casei by adaptive evolution and compared stress response during acid stress. Biotechnol Bioproc E 17, 283–289 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0346-6
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0346-6