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A study on the dynamics of the zraP gene expression profile and its application to the construction of zinc adsorption bacteria

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Abstract

Zinc ion plays essential roles in biological chemistry. Bacteria acquire Zn2+ from the environment, and cellular concentration levels are controlled by zinc homeostasis systems. In comparison with other homeostatic systems, the ZraSR two-component system was found to be more efficient in responding to exogenous zinc concentrations. To understand the dynamic response of the bacterium ZraSR two-component system with respect to exogenous zinc concentrations, the genetic circuit of the ZraSR system was integrated with a reporter protein. This study was helpful in the construction of an E. coli system that can display selective metal binding peptides on the surface of the cell in response to exogenous zinc. The engineered bacterial system for monitoring exogenous zinc was successfully employed to detect levels of zinc as low as 0.001 mM, which directly activates the expression of chimeric ompC t —zinc binding peptide gene to remove zinc by adsorbing a maximum of 163.6 μmol of zinc per gram of dry cell weight. These results indicate that the engineered bacterial strain developed in the present study can sense the specific heavy metal and activates a cell surface display system that acts to remove the metal.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the BioGreen 21 Project (PJ008057) of the Rural Development Administration of Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, University of Ulsan, Daehakro 93, Nam-gu, Ulsan, 680-749, Republic of Korea

    Sambandam Ravikumar, Ik-keun Yoo & Soon Ho Hong

  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 Program), Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Daejeon, Korea

    Sang Yup Lee

  3. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea

    Sang Yup Lee

  4. Bioprocess Engineering Research Center, Bioinformatics Research Center, Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea

    Sang Yup Lee

Authors
  1. Sambandam Ravikumar
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  2. Ik-keun Yoo
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  3. Sang Yup Lee
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  4. Soon Ho Hong
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Correspondence to Soon Ho Hong.

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Ravikumar, S., Yoo, Ik., Lee, S.Y. et al. A study on the dynamics of the zraP gene expression profile and its application to the construction of zinc adsorption bacteria. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 34, 1119–1126 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-011-0562-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-011-0562-7

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