BackgroundThe pathogenesis of post-stroke depression (PSD) remains largely unknown. There is growing evidence indicating that gut microbiota participates in the development of brain diseases through the gut-brain axis. Here, we aim to determine whether and how microbial composition and function altered among control, stroke and PSD rats.Materials and MethodsAfter the PSD rat model was successfully established, gut microbiome combined with fecal metabolome approach were performed to identify potentially PSD-related gut microbes and their functional metabolites. Then, correlations between behavior indices and altered gut microbes, as well as correlations between altered gut microbial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with differential metabolites in PSD rats were explored. Enrichment analysis was also conducted to uncover the crucial metabolic pathways related to PSD.ResultsAlthough there were some alterations in the microbiome and metabolism of the control and stroke rats, we found that the microbial and metabolic phenotypes of PSD rats were significantly different. The microbial composition of PSD showed a decreased species richness indices, characterized by 22 depleted OTUs mainly belonging to phylum Firmicutes, genus Blautia and Streptococcus. In addition, PSD was associated with disturbances of fecal metabolomics, among them Glutamate, Maleic acid, 5-Methyluridine, Gallocatechin, 1,5-Anhydroglucitol, L-Kynurenine, Daidzein, Cyanoalanine, Acetyl Alanine and 5-Methoxytryptamine were significantly related to disturbed gut microbiome (P ≤ 0.01). Disordered fecal metabolomics in PSD rats mainly assigned to lipid, amino acid, carbohydrate and nucleotide metabolism. The steroid biosynthesis was particularly enriched in PSD.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that gut microbiome may participate in the development of PSD, the mechanism may be related to the regulation of lipid metabolism.

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BackgroundThe overexpression of key enzymes in a metabolic pathway is a frequently used genetic engineering strategy for strain improvement. Metabolic control analysis has been proposed to quantitatively determine key enzymes. However, the lack of quality data often makes it difficult to correctly identify key enzymes through control analysis. Here, we proposed a method combining in vitro metabolic pathway analysis and proteomics measurement to find the key enzymes in threonine synthesis pathway.ResultsAll enzymes in the threonine synthesis pathway were purified for the reconstruction and perturbation of the in vitro pathway. Label-free proteomics technology combined with APEX (absolute protein expression measurements) data analysis method were employed to determine the absolute enzyme concentrations in the crude enzyme extract obtained from a threonine production strain during the fastest threonine production period. The flux control coefficient of each enzyme in the pathway was then calculated by measuring the flux changes after titration of the corresponding enzyme. The isoenzyme LysC catalyzing the first step in the pathway has the largest flux control coefficient, and thus its concentration change has the biggest impact on pathway flux. To verify that the key enzyme identified through in vitro pathway analysis is also the key enzyme in vivo, we overexpressed LysC in the original threonine production strain. Fermentation results showed that the threonine concentration was increased 30% and the yield was increased 20%.ConclusionsIn vitro metabolic pathways simulating in vivo cells can be built based on precise measurement of enzyme concentrations through proteomics technology and used for the determination of key enzymes through metabolic control analysis. This provides a new way to find gene overexpression targets for industrial strain improvement.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12934-015-0275-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography method has been established for the quantification of ergothioneine (EGT) in fermentation broth. Chromatographic separation was conducted on a Venusil hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) at an elution rate of 1.0 mL/min with an isocratic mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile/20 mmol/L ammonium acetate solution (85 : 15, v/v) adjusted to pH 6.0 with acetic acid. Analytes were detected at 254 nm using a UV-VIS detector. The injection volume was 10 µL, and the column temperature was 40°C. The limits of detection and limits of quantification were 63 and 21 µg/L, respectively. Excellent linearity [correlation coefficient (R(2)) = 0.9999] was achieved for EGT quantification in the range of 5-400 mg/L. The relative standard deviations of repeatability, intermediate precision and stability were 1.47, 1.03 and 1.66%, respectively, and EGT recoveries were within 99.2-100.8%. The chromatographic peak corresponding to EGT in the HILIC spectrum was confirmed using ESI-MS. In general, the method developed here is simple, reliable, accurate, and stable and may be useful for routine analyses in EGT biosynthesis research.

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Non-sterilized substrates mainly composed of soybean straw were used to cultivate Ceriporia lacerata for preparing mycelium-soybean straw composite materials (MSCM) in this research. The effect of the particle sizes of soybean straw on preparing MSCM was evaluated. Compression properties, thermal conductivity and sound absorption properties of MSCM were tested. The results showed that cultivation of C. lacerata with non-sterilized substrates could be applied to prepare MSCM. It was conducive to mycelium growth and molding of MSCM while the particle sizes of soybean straw were bigger within a certain range. And the results of the tests showed that MSCM had properties of high compressive strength, good thermal insulation and good sound absorption.

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