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Arginine deiminase pathway genes and arginine degradation variability in Oenococcus oeni strains

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Abstract

Trace amounts of the carcinogenic ethyl carbamate can appear in wine as a result of a reaction between ethanol and citrulline, which is produced from arginine degradation by some bacteria used in winemaking. In this study, arginine deiminase (ADI) pathway genes were evaluated in 44 Oenococcus oeni strains from wines originating from several locations in order to establish the relationship between the ability of a strain to degrade arginine and the presence of related genes. To detect the presence of arc genes of the ADI pathway in O. oeni, pairs of primers were designed to amplify arcA, arcB, arcC and arcD1 sequences. All strains contained these four genes. The same primers were used to confirm the organization of these genes in an arcABCD1 operon. Nevertheless, considerable variability in the ability to degrade arginine among these O. oeni strains was observed. Therefore, despite the presence of the arc genes in all strains, the expression patterns of individual genes must be strain dependent and influenced by the different wine conditions. Additionally, the presence of arc genes was also determined in the 57 sequenced strains of O. oeni available in GenBank, and the complete operon was found in 83 % of strains derived from wine. The other strains were found to lack the arcB, arcC and arcD genes, but all contained sequences homologous to arcA, and some of them had also ADI activity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grant AGL-2000-0827-C02-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

This work complies with ethical standards. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Bioquímica i Biotecnologia, Facultat d’Enologia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain

    Isabel Araque, Joana Gil, Ramon Carreté, Albert Bordons & Cristina Reguant

  2. Departament d’Enginyeria Química, ETSEQ, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain

    Magda Constantí

Authors
  1. Isabel Araque
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  2. Joana Gil
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  3. Ramon Carreté
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  4. Magda Constantí
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  5. Albert Bordons
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  6. Cristina Reguant
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Correspondence to Albert Bordons.

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ESM 1

Table S1 Production of citrulline from arginine (5 g/L) in MRS medium at pH 4.5 by strains of Oenococcus oeni. Values are the averages of duplicate cultures. (DOCX 30 kb)

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Araque, I., Gil, J., Carreté, R. et al. Arginine deiminase pathway genes and arginine degradation variability in Oenococcus oeni strains. Folia Microbiol 61, 109–118 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-015-0416-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-015-0416-9

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