Production of soluble recombinant proteins is crucial to the development of industry and basic research. However, the aggregation due to the incorrect folding of the nascent polypeptides is still a mayor bottleneck. Understanding the factors governing protein solubility is important to grasp the underlying mechanisms and improve the design of recombinant proteins. Here we show a quantitative study of the expression and solubility of a set of proteins from Bizionia argentinensis. Through the analysis of different features known to modulate protein production, we defined two parameters based on the %MinMax algorithm to compare codon usage clusters between the host and the target genes. We demonstrate that the absolute difference between all %MinMax frequencies of the host and the target gene is significantly negatively correlated with protein expression levels. But most importantly, a strong positive correlation between solubility and the degree of conservation of codons usage clusters is observed for two independent datasets. Moreover, we evince that this correlation is higher in codon usage clusters involved in less compact protein secondary structure regions. Our results provide important tools for protein design and support the notion that codon usage may dictate translation rate and modulate co-translational folding.
We report on the occurrence and clinical and microbiological characteristics of infections caused by members of the CdSC in companion animals. This is the first study based on the systematic analysis of a very large animal cohort (18,308 samples), which provides data on the frequency of CdSC isolates in various types of clinical samples from animals.
Objectives: Corynebacteria of the diphtheriae complex (Cdc) can cause diphtheria in humans and have been reported from companion animals. We aimed to describe animal infection cases caused by Cdc isolates. Methods: 18 308 animals (dogs, cats, horses and small mammals) with rhinitis, dermatitis, non-healing wounds and otitis were sampled in metropolitan France (August 2019 to August 2021). Data on symptoms, age, breed, and the administrative region of origin were collected. Cultured bacteria were analyzed for tox gene presence, for production of the diphtheria toxin, for antimicrobial susceptibility, and genotyped by multilocus sequence typing. Results: C. ulcerans was identified in 51 cases, 24 of which were toxigenic. Rhinitis was the most frequent presentation (18/51). Eleven cases (6 cats, 4 dogs, 1 rat) were mono-infections. Large breed dogs, especially German Shepherds (9 of 28 dogs; p < 0.00001) were overrepresented. C. ulcerans isolates were susceptible to all tested antibiotics. tox-positive C. diphtheriae was identified in 2 horses. Last, 11 infections cases (9 dogs, 2 cats; mostly chronic otitis, and 2 sores) had tox-negative C. rouxii, a recently defined species. C. rouxii and C. diphtheriae isolates were susceptible to most antibiotics tested, and almost all of these infections were polymicrobial. Conclusions: Monoinfections with C. ulcerans point towards a primary pathogenic potential to animals. C. ulcerans represents an important zoonotic risk, and C. rouxii may represent a novel zoonotic agent. This case series provides novel clinical and microbiological data on Cdc infections, and underlines the need for management of animals and their human contacts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.