Optimality of extracellular enzyme production and activity in dynamic flux balance modeling

In microbial communities, many vital metabolic functions, including the degradation of cellulose, proteins and other complex macromolecules, are carried out by costly, extracellularly secreted enzymes. While significant effort has been dedicated to analyzing genome-scale metabolic networks for individual microbes and communities, little is known about the interplay between global allocation of metabolic resources in the cell and extracellular enzyme secretion and activity. Here we introduce a method for modeling the secretion and catalytic functions of extracellular enzymes using dynamic flux balance analysis. This new addition, implemented within COMETS (Computation Of Microbial Ecosystems in Time and Space), simulates the costly production and secretion of enzymes and their diffusion and activity throughout the environment, independent of the producing organism. After tuning our model based on data for a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain engineered to produce exogenous cellulases, we explored the dynamics of the system at different cellulose concentrations and enzyme production rates. We found that there are distinct rates of constitutive enzyme secretion which maximize either growth rate or biomass yield. These optimal rates are strongly dependent on enzyme kinetic properties and environmental conditions, including the amount of cellulose substrate available. Our framework will facilitate the development of more realistic simulations of microbial community dynamics within environments rich in complex macromolecules, with applications in the study of soil and plant-associated ecosystems, and other natural and engineered microbiomes.

Isolation and production of organic solvent tolerant protease from bacterial burn infection, Staphylococcus aureus KP091274

Organic solvent-resistant proteases are used to synthesize valuable pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. Using an available and inexpensive source can be very effective in producing this enzyme. For this purpose, Staphylococcus aureus KP091274 was isolated from burn infection and a medium optimization procedure in the presence of organic solvents was considered for four factors of incubation time, the concentration of Mg2+, glycerol and sorbitol using the response surface methodology. The results of this statistical method showed that incubation time has the most effect and glycerol concentration has the least positive effect on enzyme secretion. As a result of applying the optimized conditions in the bacterial culture medium (3mM of Mg2+, 1.5% W/V of glycerol, 0.4% W/V of sorbitol and 72 hours of incubation), the enzyme secretion reaches its maximum.

The exocyst regulates hydrolytic enzyme secretion at hyphal tips and septa in banana Fusarium wilt fungus, Fusarium odoratissimum

Hyphal polarized growth in filamentous fungi requires tip-directed secretion, while additional evidence suggests that fungal exocytosis for the hydrolytic enzyme secretion can occur at other sites in hyphae, including the septum. In this study, we analyzed the role of the exocyst complex involved in the secretion in banana wilt fungal pathogen Fusarium odoratissimum . All eight exocyst components in F. odoratissimum not only localized to the tips ahead of the Spitzenkörper in growing hyphae, but also localized to the outer edges of septa in mature hyphae. To further analyze the exocyst in F. odoratissimum , we tried to do single gene deletion for all the genes encoding the eight exocyst components and only succeed to construct the gene deletion mutants for exo70 and sec5 , we suspect that the other 6 exocyst components are encoded by essential genes. Deletion of exo70 or sec5 led to defects in vegetative growth, conidiation and pathogenicity in F. odoratissimum . Notably, the deletion of exo70 resulted in decreased activities for endoglucosidase, filter paper enzymes and amylase, while the loss of sec5 only led to a slight reduction in amylase activity. Septa-localized α-amylase (AmyB) was identified as the marker for septum-directed secretion, and we found that Exo70 is essential for the localization of AmyB to septa. Meanwhile the loss of Sec5 did not affect AmyB localization to septa but led to a higher accumulation of AmyB in cytoplasm. This suggested while Exo70 and Sec5 both take part in the septum-directed secretion, the two conduct different roles in this process. IMPORTANCE The exocyst complex is a multisubunit tethering complex (MTC) for secretory vesicles at the plasma membrane and contains eight subunits, Sec3, Sec5, Sec6, Sec8, Sec10, Sec15, Exo70 and Exo84. While the exocyst complex is well defined in eukaryotes from yeast to humans, the exocyst components in filamentous fungi show different localization patterns in the apical tips of hyphae that suggests filamentous fungi have evolved divergent strategies to regulate endomembrane trafficking. In this study, we demonstrated that the exocyst components in Fusarium odoratissimum are not only localized to the tips of growing hyphae but also to the outer edge of the septa in mature hyphae, suggesting that the exocyst complex plays a role in the regulation of septum-directed protein secretion in F. odoratissimum . We further found that Exo70 and Sec5 are required for the septum-directed secretion of α-amylase in F. odoratissimum but with different influence.

Efficacy of octreotide (Octrade) for prevention of pancreatitis after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography

The article presents the results of a study of the effectiveness of the use of an inhibitor of pancreatic enzyme secretion of octreotide (Octrade) for the prevention of pancreatitis after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). It was shown that the administration of Octrade at a dose of 0.3 mg in 500 ml of 0.9 % NaCl by continuous intravenous infusion for 7 hours and then 0.1 mg of Octrade subcutaneously at 6 and 12 hours after the end of intravenous infusion significantly reduced the frequency of pancreatitis (4.0 % and 22.2 %; p < 0.05) and hyperamylasemia (8.0 % and 25.9 %; p < 0.05) after ERCP. It is concluded that Octrade is effective in preventing the development of pancreatitis and hyperamilasemia after ERCP.