Enhancing the antibacterial function of probiotic Escherichia coli Nissle: when less is more
Author(s)
Emma, Bartram
Asai, Masanori
Gabant, Philippe
Wigneshweraraj, Sivaramesh
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Probiotic bacteria confer multiple health benefits, including preventing the growth, colonization, or carriage of harmful bacteria in the gut. Bacteriocins are antibacterial peptides produced by diverse bacteria, and their production is tightly regulated and coordinated at the transcriptional level. A popular strategy for enhancing the antibacterial properties of probiotic bacteria is to retrofit them with the ability to overproduce heterologous bacteriocins. This is often achieved from non-native constitutive promoters or in response to host or pathogen signal from synthetic promoters. How the dysregulated overproduction of heterologous bacteriocins affects the fitness and antibacterial efficacy of the retrofitted probiotic bacteria is often overlooked. We have conferred the prototypical probiotic Escherichia coli strain Nissle (EcN) the ability to produce microcin C (McC) from the wild-type promoter and two mutant promoters that allow, relative to the wild-type promoter, high and low amounts of McC production. This was done by introducing specific changes to the sequence of the wild-type promoter driving transcription of the McC operon while ensuring that the modified promoters respond to native regulation. By studying the transcriptomic responses and antibacterial efficacy of the retrofitted EcN bacteria in a Galleria mellonella infection model of enterohemorrhagic E. coli, we show that EcN bacteria that produce the lowest amount of McC display the highest antibacterial efficacy with little-to-none undesired collateral impact on their fitness. The results highlight considerations researchers may take into account when retrofitting probiotic bacteria with heterogenous gene products for therapeutic, prophylactic, or diagnostic applications.
Date Issued
2023-11-29
Date Acceptance
2023-08-28
Citation
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2023, 89 (11)
ISSN
0099-2240
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Journal / Book Title
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Volume
89
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2023 Bartram et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Copyright URL
Identifier
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aem.00975-23
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e00975
Date Publish Online
2023-11-06