No abstract

Surfactin, a cyclic lipopeptide antibiotic and biosurfactant produced by Bacillus subtilis, is well-known for its interactions with artificial and biomembrane systems (e.g., bacterial protoplasts or enveloped viruses). To assess the applicability of this antiviral and antibacterial drug, we determined the cytotoxicity of surfactin with a 50% cytotoxic concentration of 30 to 64 M for a variety of human and animal cell lines in vitro. Concomitantly, we observed an improvement in proliferation rates and changes in the morphology of mycoplasmacontaminated mammalian cells after treatment with this drug. A single treatment over one passage led to complete removal of viable Mycoplasma hyorhinis cells from various adherent cell lines, and Mycoplasma orale was removed from nonadherent human T-lymphoid cell lines by double treatment. This effect was monitored by a DNA fluorescence test, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and two different PCR methods. Disintegration of the mycoplasma membranes as observed by electron microscopy indicated the mode of action of surfactin. Disintegration is obviously due to a physicochemical interaction of the membrane-active surfactant with the outer part of the lipid membrane bilayer, which causes permeability changes and at higher concentrations leads finally to disintegration of the mycoplasma membrane system by a detergent effect. The low cytotoxicity of surfactin for mammalian cells permits specific inactivation of mycoplasmas without significant deleterious effects on cell metabolism and the proliferation rate in cell culture. These results were used to develop a fast and simple method for complete and permanent inactivation of mycoplasmas in mammalian monolayer and suspension cell cultures.

The structural and functional organization of the fengycin synthetase system from B. subtilis b213 has been characterized in detail and correlated with the corresponding pps and fen genes in B. subtilis strains 168, A1/3 and F29-3. Biosynthesis of the peptide part of fengycin involves five multifunctional modular proteins that assemble the lipopeptide chain using a nonribosomal, multiple carrier thiotemplate mechanism.

The srfA operon of Bacillus subtilis functions in the biosynthesis of the lipopeptide antibiotic surfactin. On the basis of nucleotide sequence and genetic analysis, it is believed to encode three enzymes (E1A, E1B, and E2) that catalyze the incorporation of the surfactin substrate amino acids. Insertion, deletion, and amino acid substitution mutations of srfA were analyzed for subunit composition and activity as determined by assays of both amino acid-dependent ATP-PPi exchange and aminoacyl thioester formation. Insertion mutations in srfAA (encoding E1A, the subunit that incorporates Glu, Leu, and D-Leu) eliminated production and activity of all three enzymes. Deletions within srfAA and extending from srfAA to srfAB (encoding E1B, which incorporates Val, Asp, and D-Leu) abolished the activity and production of all three enzymes. Insertions between srfAA and srfAB and within srfAB eliminate the production and activity of E1B and E2. An insertion mutation in srfAC (encoding E2, which incorporates Leu) abolished the activity of E2 only. Mutations of the active serine in the putative 4'-phosphopantetheine-binding motif of the second and third domains of E1A eliminated thioester formation and severely reduced the ATP-PPi exchange activity of the two domains. However, the same mutation in the first domain of E1B had little effect on Val-dependent ATP-PPi exchange activity but abolished thioester formation. These results indicate that the coding assignments of the srfA genes are srfAA (E1A), srfAB (E1B), and srfAC (E2).

The expression of the srf operon of Bacillus subtilis, encoding surfactin synthetase and the competence regulatory protein ComS, was observed to be reduced when cells were grown in a rich glucose- and glutamine-containing medium in which late-growth culture pH was 5.0 or lower. The production of the surfactin synthetase subunits and of surfactin itself was also reduced. Raising the pH to near neutrality resulted in dramatic increases in srf expression and surfactin production. This apparent pH-dependent induction of srf expression requiredspo0K, which encodes the oligopeptide permease that functions in cell-density-dependent control of sporulation and competence, but not CSF, the competence-inducing pheromone that regulates srf expression in a Spo0K-dependent manner. Both ComP and ComA, the two-component regulatory pair that stimulates cell-density-dependent srf transcription, were required for optimal expression of srf at low and high pHs, but ComP was not required for pH-dependent srf induction. The known negative regulators of srf, RapC and CodY, were found not to function significantly in pH-dependent srf expression. Late-growth culture supernatants at low pH were not active in inducingsrf expression in cells of low-density cultures but were rendered active when their pH was raised to near neutrality. ComQ (and very likely the srf-inducing pheromone ComX) and Spo0K were found to be required for the extracellular induction ofsrf-lacZ at neutral pH. The results suggest thatsrf expression, in response to changes in culture pH, requires Spo0K and another, as yet unidentified, extracellular factor. The study also provides evidence consistent with the hypothesis that ComP acts both positively and negatively in the regulation of ComA and that both activities are controlled by the ComX pheromone.