The response of Escherichia coli to the alkylating agents chloroacetaldehyde and styrene oxide

Abstract

DNA damage is ubiquitous and can arise from endogenous or exogenous sources. DNA-damaging alkylating agents are present in environmental toxicants as well as in cancer chemotherapy drugs and are a constant threat, which can lead to mutations or cell death. All organisms have multiple DNA repair and DNA damage tolerance pathways to resist the potentially negative effects of exposure to alkylating agents. In bacteria, many of the genes in these pathways are regulated as part of the SOS reponse or the adaptive response. In this work, we probed the cellular responses to the alkylating agents chloroacetaldehyde (CAA), which is a metabolite of 1,2-dichloroethane used to produce polyvinyl chloride, and styrene oxide (SO), a major metabolite of styrene used in the production of polystyrene and other polymers. Vinyl chloride and styrene are produced on an industrial scale of billions of kilograms annually and thus have a high potential for environmental exposure. To identify stress response genes in E. coli that are responsible for tolerance to the

Escherichia coli SymE is a DNA‐binding protein that can condense the nucleoid

“…Prior work showed that symE is under LexA control, and it was shown early on to be DNA damage‐inducible (receiving the designation of dinL ) and part of the SOS regulon (Fernandez De Henestrosa et al., 2000; Lewis et al., 1994). One recent study found that a ΔsymER strain has a modest growth defect after treatment with the alkylating agent styrene oxide (Muenter et al., 2019), but symE is not required to survive other DNA damaging agents such as mitomycin C (Kawano et al., 2007).…”

“…Though induced in the SOS response, there is limited evidence of a role for SymE in recovery from DNA damage. Δ symE mutants show no growth difference in most DNA damaging conditions except for a modest defect when treated with styrene oxide (Kawano et al., 2007; Muenter et al., 2019).…”

Hazardous Effects of Sucralose and Its Disinfection Byproducts Identified From an E. coli Whole-Cell Array Analysis

“…The differences in expression levels were obvious for E. coli treated with different SUC concentrations. In this study, a TELI value of 1.5 was set as the toxicity limit, with TELI > 1.5 considered to be significantly toxic, in line with previous literature (Hayes and Dalton, 2015;Muenter et al, 2019).…”

“…The TELI analysis has been used for characterizing specific functional-impairment stress in cells exposed to different drug concentrations (Gou et al, 2014;Hayes and Dalton, 2015). Therefore, this analysis provides information on the number and identity of genes with altered expression, the magnitude of the alteration, and the temporal pattern of gene expression change in response to toxicant exposure (Muenter et al, 2019). Furthermore, cellular responses of SUC after different disinfection processes were evaluated.…”

Mutational signatures associated with exposure to carcinogenic microplastic compounds bisphenol A and styrene oxide

“…Traces of microplastic components have been found in potable water, food sources and air, and are associated with elevated risk of a number of diseases including cancer ( 2 ). Bisphenol A (BPA) and styrene-7,8-oxide (SO) are common compounds used in the production of epoxy resins and polycarbonate plastics ( 3 , 4 ). They are also major components of microplastic waste globally, and have recently been included in the list of carcinogens by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.…”