Specialized Techniques for Site-Directed Mutagenesis in Cyanobacteria

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Cyanobacteria evolved a robust circadian clock, which has a profound influence on fitness and metabolism under daily lightdark (LD) cycles. In the model cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, a functional clock is not required for diurnal growth, but mutants defective for the response regulator that mediates transcriptional rhythms in the wild-type, regulator of phycobilisome association A (RpaA), cannot be cultured under LD conditions. We found that rpaA-null mutants are inviable after several hours in the dark and compared the metabolomes of wild-type and rpaA-null strains to identify the source of lethality. Here, we show that the wild-type metabolome is very stable throughout the night, and this stability is lost in the absence of RpaA. Additionally, an rpaA mutant accumulates excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) during the day and is unable to clear it during the night. The rpaA-null metabolome indicates that these cells are reductant-starved in the dark, likely because enzymes of the primary nighttime NADPH-producing pathway are direct targets of RpaA. Because NADPH is required for processes that detoxify ROS, conditional LD lethality likely results from inability of the mutant to activate reductant-requiring pathways that detoxify ROS when photosynthesis is not active. We identified second-site mutations and growth conditions that suppress LD lethality in the mutant background that support these conclusions. These results provide a mechanistic explanation as to why rpaA-null mutants die in the dark, further connect the clock to metabolism under diurnal growth, and indicate that RpaA likely has important unidentified functions during the day.C yanobacteria are both key agents of global carbon and nitrogen cycles and promising platforms for renewable chemicals, fuels, and nutraceuticals (1-3). Understanding the control mechanisms that govern the flow of carbon and nitrogen through these organisms is crucial for predicting their behavior in natural environments as well as for improving engineering strategies. Although the basic pathways for carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and their regulation, are well understood in heterotrophic bacteria, cyanobacteria exhibit important deviations in these core metabolic pathways (4-7). Additionally, metabolic control mechanisms in cyanobacteria evolved to be compatible with photoautotrophic metabolism and the dramatic shifts that are imposed on those pathways by predictable daily light-dark (LD) cycles. Examples include enzymatic activity that responds to light-dependent cellular redox changes (8-11); the preference for NADPH, the reductant produced by the photochemical reactions, over NADH by many biosynthetic enzymes (12, 13); and a circadian clock that drives 24-h transcriptional rhythms in most genes (14-16).A daily LD cycle presents a strong metabolic driver for the photosynthetic cyanobacteria, but a circadian clock also imposes daily cycles in transcription and redox regulatory systems (17, 18). Circadian measurements historically have been performed in...

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redox crisis underlies conditional light–dark lethality in cyanobacterial mutants that lack the circadian regulator, RpaA

Diamond

Rubin

Shultzaberger

et al. 2017

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“…Transformation and homologous recombination of vectors into S. elongatus were performed according to standard methods that take advantage of its natural competence (61)(62)(63). The genotypes of strains were confirmed by standard colony or whole cell PCR protocols using Taq DNA polymerase (NEB) or Phusion High-Fidelity DNA polymerase (NEB).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impairment of O-antigen production confers resistance to grazing in a model amoeba–cyanobacterium predator–prey system

Simkovsky

Daniels

Tang³

et al. 2012

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The grazing activity of predators on photosynthetic organisms is a major mechanism of mortality and population restructuring in natural environments. Grazing is also one of the primary difficulties in growing cyanobacteria and other microalgae in large, open ponds for the production of biofuels, as contaminants destroy valuable biomass and prevent stable, continuous production of biofuel crops. To address this problem, we have isolated a heterolobosean amoeba, HGG1, that grazes upon unicellular and filamentous freshwater cyanobacterial species. We have established a model predator–prey system using this amoeba and Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942. Application of amoebae to a library of mutants of S. elongatus led to the identification of a grazer-resistant knockout mutant of the wzm ABC O-antigen transporter gene, SynPCC7942_1126. Mutations in three other genes involved in O-antigen synthesis and transport also prevented the expression of O-antigen and conferred resistance to HGG1. Complementation of these rough mutants returned O-antigen expression and susceptibility to amoebae. Rough mutants are easily identifiable by appearance, are capable of autoflocculation, and do not display growth defects under standard laboratory growth conditions, all of which are desired traits for a biofuel production strain. Thus, preventing the production of O-antigen is a pathway for producing resistance to grazing by certain amoebae.

“…Null strains for cikA (AMC1426) or kaiC (AMC1511) were constructed by insertion of an inactivation cassette (42) or a Mu transposon (40). Cyanobacterial transformations were performed as described earlier (42). E. coli strains DH10B and BL21DE3 hosted plasmids, and they were grown as described previously (43).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quinone sensing by the circadian input kinase of the cyanobacterial circadian clock

Ivleva¹,

Gao

LiWang

et al. 2006

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108

148

Circadian rhythms are endogenous cellular programs that time metabolic and behavioral events to occur at optimal times in the daily cycle. Light and dark cycles synchronize the endogenous clock with the external environment through a process called entrainment. Previously, we identified the bacteriophytochrome-like circadian input kinase CikA as a key factor for entraining the clock in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942. Here, we present evidence that CikA senses not light but rather the redox state of the plastoquinone pool, which, in photosynthetic organisms, varies as a function of the light environment. Furthermore, CikA associates with the Kai proteins of the circadian oscillator, and it influences the phosphorylation state of KaiC during resetting of circadian phase by a dark pulse. The abundance of CikA varies inversely with light intensity, and its stability decreases in the presence of the quinone analog 2,5-dibromo-3-methyl-6-isopropylp-benzoquinone (DBMIB). The pseudo-receiver domain of CikA is crucial for sensitivity to DBMIB, and it binds the quinone directly, a demonstration of a previously unrecognized ligand-binding role for the receiver fold. Our results suggest that resetting the clock in S. elongatus is metabolism-dependent and that it is accomplished through the interaction of the circadian oscillator with CikA.biological rhythms ͉ photosynthetic electron transport ͉ pseudo-receiver ͉ redox ͉ Synechococcus elongatus