Patent Application: US-201013514908-A

Abstract:
the invention relates to a transporter protein involved in the transport of sophorolipids . more specifically , it relates to a candida bombicola sophorolipid transporter protein , and the use of this transporter to modulate the secretion and / or production of glycolipids , preferably sophorolipids in organisms , preferably in fungi .

Description:
candida bombicola atcc 22214 was used as the parental strain . candida bombicola pt36 , an ura3 autotrophic mutant , was derived from this parental strain ( unpublished results ) and used to construct both the knock - out and over - expression strains . u . maydis dsm17146 ( mb215emt1 ) a strain deficient in mannosylerythritol lipid ( mel ) production , was used in the heterologous expression experiments . when sophorolipid production was intended , the medium described by lang et al . ( 2000 ) was used . 37 . 5 g / l rapeseed oil was added two days after inoculation . yeast cultures were incubated at 30 ° c . and 200 rpm for a total time of 10 days . cellobiose lipid production was conducted according to the method described by spoecker et al . ( 1999 ). antibiotic resistance of the mutants was tested on yeast peptone dextrose ( ypd ) plates ( 1 % yeast extract , 2 % peptone , 2 % glucose and 2 % agar ) containing 50 μg / ml pleomycin or 400 or 800 μg / ml g418 , or 300 μg / ml zeocin at ph 6 . 5 or 7 . the different yeast cultures were grown o / n and put at the same optical density before ten - fold dilutions from 10 − 1 till 10 − 5 were made . the plates ware incubated at 30 ° c . during several days and growth was monitored daily . escherichia coli xl10 - gold cells were used in all cloning experiments and were grown in luria - bertani ( lb ) medium ( 1 % trypton , 0 . 5 % yeast extract and 0 . 5 % sodium chloride ) supplemented with 100 mg / l ampicillin . liquid e . coli cultures were incubated at 37 ° c . and 200 rpm . yeast genomic dna was isolated with the genelute ™ bacterial genomic dna kit ( sigma ). preceding protoplast formation was performed by incubation at 30 ° c . for 90 minutes with zymolyase ( sigma ). u . maydis gdna was isolated according to the protocol of de maeseneire et al . ( 2007 ). bacterial plasmid dna was isolated with the qiaprep spin miniprep kit ( qiagen ). all dna sequences were determined at lgc genomics ( berlin , germany ). c . bombicola cells were transformed with the lithium acetate method ( gietz & amp ; schiestl , 1995 ), but 50 mm liac was used instead of 100 . transformants were selected on synthetic dextrose ( sd ) plates ( 0 . 67 % yeast nitrogen base without amino acids ( difco ) and 2 % glucose ). e . coli cells were transformed as described by inoue et al . ( 1990 ). protoplast transformation of ustilago maydis was carried out as described by brachmann et al . ( 2004 ). the coding region of 3900 by and 386 and 521 by upstream and downstream of the sophorolipid transporter gene were amplified with the primers mdrtotfor and mdrtotrev , yielding a fragment of 4789 bp , which was cloned into the pgem - t ® vector ( promega ). the created vector was digested with bglii , cutting the coding sequence of the gene twice , in this way deleting 2498 by of the transporter coding region . the candida bombicola ura3 autotrophic marker ( van bogaert et al ., 2008 ) was inserted by means of the in - fusion ™ 2 . 0 dry - down pcr cloning kit ( clontech ). the primers urainfmdrfor and urainfmdrrev were designed according to the guidelines of the manual and used for integration of the ura3 cassette ( 2091 bp ) into the sophorolipid transporter gene . the primer pair mdrtotfor and mdrtotrev were used for the amplification of a 4356 by fragment containing the ura3 marker with approximately 1 kb of the sophorolipid transporter sequence on each site , required for homologue recombination at the transporter locus . this linear fragment was used to transform candida bombicola pt36 . over - expression of the mdr gene was achieved by replacing the original mdr promoter by the homologous glyceraldehyde 3 - phosphate dehydrogenase ( gpd ) promoter . for this , a cassette allowing homologous recombination at the mdr locus was designed ( fig1 ). in a first step , the 5 ′ homologous region ( 969 bp ) was amplified from c . bombicola gdna with the primers mdrupfor and mdrupbamhimfeirev and cloned into the pgem - t ® vector ( promega ). in a second step , the ura3 auxotrophic marker followed by the 1560 by gpd promoter region was amplified from pgem - t_yegfp_pgapd1560 with the primers uragpdbamhifor and uragpdfusrev . the resulting 3187 by fragment was linked by fusion pcr to the 3 ′ homologous region ( 974 bp ), which was obtained by amplification with the primers mdrfusfor and mdrmfeirev with c . bombicola gdna as template . both the vector obtained in the first step and the pcr fusion product achieved in the second step , were cut with bamhi - hf and mfei ( new england biolabs ) and a ligation was performed . the ligation mixture was transformed into competent e . coli cells and colonies were screened for the correct construct ( total of 8078 bp ) by colony pcr with the primers mdrtotfor and ura3 wt rev . the plasmids of the colonies yielding a 1131 by fragment were isolated and sent for sequencing . the 5070 by integration cassette was amplified with the primers mdrupfor and mdrinsertchekrev and was used to transform c . bombicola pt36 . the mdr coding sequence and its terminator of about 350 by was amplified from c . bombicola gdna with the primers mdrctnotifor and mdrctspeirev . the 4275 by fragment was cut with noti and spei ( new england biolabs ), as well as the vector pcm1052 , which was kindly provided by dr . william holloman from the cornell university weill medical college , new york , usa . a ligation was performed and the mixture was transformed into competent e . coli cells . colonies were screened for the correct construct ( total of 11033 bp ; fig2 ) by colony pcr with the primers mdrseq4 and hygroinsertcheckrev . u . maydis was transformed with either ( 1 ) the whole plasmid , ( 2 ) a 7073 by linear fragment derived by pcr with the primers mdrumcasfor and hygroinsertcheckrev , or ( 3 ) a plasmid digested with kpni and sfii ( new england biolabs ). transformants were selected on ypd plates containing 40 μg / ml of carboxin ( sigma ). analytical sophorolipid and cellobiose lipid samples were prepared as follows : 440 μl ethylacetate and 11 μl acetic acid were added to 1 ml culture broth and shaken vigorously for 5 minutes . after centrifugation at 9000 g for 5 minutes , the upper solvent layer was removed and put into a fresh eppendorf tube with 600 μl ethanol . at the end of the incubation period , 3 volumes ethanol were added to the culture broth for total extraction of sophorolipids . cell debris was removed by centrifugation at 1500 g during 10 minutes . for further gravimetric analysis , the supernatant water - ethanol mixture was evaporated . two volumes of ethanol were added to dissolve the sophorolipids and the residual hydrophobic carbon source . the mixture was filtrated to remove the water - soluble compounds and was evaporated again . one volume of water was added and set at ph 7 , then 1 volume of hexane was added and , after vigorous shaking , the mixture was allowed to separate . the different fractions were collected , evaporated and the mass was determined . the hexane phase will contain residual oil , while the water phase contains the sophorolipids . cell dry weight ( cdw ) was measured by centrifugation of 2 ml culture broth for 5 minutes at 9000 g . pellets were washed two times with ethanol to remove sophorolipids and hydrophobic substrate and finally dissolved in distilled water . the suspension was transferred to a cellulose nitrate filter with a pore diameter of 0 . 45 μm ( sartorius ) and the dry weight was determined in the xm60 automatic oven from precisa instruments ltd . glucose concentration in the culture supernatants was determined by analysis with the 2700 select biochemistry analyzer ( ysi inc .). colony - forming units ( cfu ) were determined by plating decimal dilutions on agar plates with 10 % glucose , 1 % yeast extract and 0 . 1 % urea , which were incubated at 30 ° c . for three days . sophorolipid and cellobiose lipid samples were analyzed by hplc on a varian prostar hplc system using a chromolith ® performance rp - 18e 100 - 4 . 6 mm column from merck kgaa at 30 ° c . and evaporative light scattering detection ( alltech ). a gradient of two eluents , a 0 . 5 % acetic acid aqueous solution and acetonitrile , had to be used to separate the components . the gradient started at 5 % acetonitrile and linearly increased till 95 % in 40 minutes . the mixture was kept this way for 10 minutes and was then brought back to 5 % acetonitrile in 5 minutes . a flow rate of 1 ml / minute was applied . in order to be able to compare and quantify the different samples , dilutions of a standard were analyzed in parallel . the sophorolipid transporter nucleotide sequence is given in fig7 ( seq id no : 1 ). the sophorolipid transporter gene is found to be intron - less , just as most other c . bombicola genes ( van bogaert et al ., 2009a and b ). translation of this large gene results in a protein of 1299 amino acids ( fig8 , seq id no : 2 ) and assuming no post - translational modifications , this corresponds with a molecular weight of 142 kda and a pi of 6 . 38 . the protein shows up to 49 % identity with abc multidrug resistance transporters ( mdr ) of several aspergillus species . these transporters take part in the efflux of xenobiotics and / or the secretion of antibiotics . atrdp from aspergillus nidulans , for instance , enhances resistance against cytotoxic components and is at the same time required for efficient penicillin secretion ( andrade et al ., 2000 ). being transporters , mdr proteins are membrane integrated . analysis of the amino acid sequence suggested the presence of 12 transmembrane helixes ( tm ; kroch et al ., 2001 ) and two nucleotide binding domains ( nbd ; zdobnov & amp ; apweiler , 2001 ) arranged in the characteristic homodimeer - like ( tm 6 - nbd ) 2 mdr structure ( fig3 ). when comparing the two halves of the enzyme , there is a striking similarity between them ; it is believed that the transporters emerged from a true homodimeer after gene duplication and fusion . for example , the mdr sav1866 from staphylococcus aureus has a tm 6 - nbd structure and appears as a homodimeer ( dawson et al ., 2006 ). as presented in fig3 , the active part of the transporter is located in the cytosol and , in agreement with this , the intracellular loops , including the nbds , are highly conserved when compared intra - or intermolecular , whereas the tm regions and extracellular loops show higher diversity . fig4 shows the alignment of the two nbds of the c . bombicola sophorolipid transporter . the conserved amino acid sequences for atp binding , the walker a and b motifs and the abc signature sequence , are present ( walker et al ., 1982 ). the sophorolipid transporter knock - out cassette was constructed as described in the materials and methods section . this linear fragment was used to transform the ura3 - negative candida bombicola pt36 strain . the genotype of the transformants was checked by yeast colony pcr with two primer pairs . the first combination , mdrinsertcheckup and ura3up . n , verifies the upstream recombination event ; mdrinsertcheckup binds the genomic dna preceding the integration region and ura3up . n binds the marker gene of the disruption cassette . the second pair checks the downstream part in the some way : mdrinsertcheckdown binds the genomic region , whereas ura3outendrev binds the marker gene . five out of 31 colonies displayed the desired genotype . the mutants were first evaluated for their resistance toward several antibiotics . candida bombicola is known to be highly resistant toward several antibiotics commonly used in yeast research ( van bogaert , 2008 ). until now , only hygromycin can be used as a dominant drug selective marker , while the yeast keeps growing in the presence of high concentrations of g418 , zeocin and phleomycin ( e . g ., & gt ; 1400 μg / ml g418 , whereas 200 μg / ml is sufficient to kill s . cerevisiae ). different cell concentrations of all five mutant strains were put on solid media containing pleomycin , g418 or zeocin . no difference could be observed between the wild - type and the mutants ; growth was observed at the same time points and for the same cell concentrations . this finding strengthened the hypothesis that the sophorolipid transporter was not directly involved in the high resistance phenotype , but is assigned a specific role in sophorolipid transport . if the transporter takes part in sophorolipid export , knocking out the gene should result in reduced sophorolipid production or even toxicity for the producing cell . sophorolipid synthesis of three genetically identical mutants ( mdr12 , mdr21 and mdr31 ) was evaluated on rapeseed oil ; the preferred hydrophobic carbon source for high sophorolipid yield . a first indication for reduced sophorolipid production is a decrease in glucose consumption . while in the first part of the stationary phase glucose consumption of the wild - type and the mutants is more or less the same , there is a clear difference in the latter part ; glucose is consumed much faster by the wild - type . indeed , quantification of the sophorolipid synthesis revealed a significant difference between the wild - type and the mutants ; although sophorlipids were still detected , they never reached more than 10 % of the wild - type titer ( fig5 ). it must be stressed that cell growth or viability of the mutants was not affected ; cfu , cdw and cell shape were similar to the wild - type . the sophorolipid transporter over - expression cassette was constructed as described in the materials and methods section . this linear fragment was used to transform the ura3 - negative candida bombicola pt36 strain . the genotype of the transformants was checked by yeast colony pcr with two primer pairs . the first combination , mdrinsertcheckup and ura3 5 ′ rev , verifies the upstream recombination event ; mdrinsertcheckup binds the genomic dna preceding the integration region and ura3 5 ′ rev binds the marker gene of the disruption cassette . the second pair checks the downstream part in the same way : mdrcheck2rev binds the genomic region , whereas gapdhygro194 binds the insert . the production of sophorolipids of a correct transformant strain was compared to the wild - type on medium according to lang et al . ( 2001 ). the strain over - expressing the transporter showed an increased secretion of sophorolipids when compared with the non - transformed parental strain , cultivated under the same conditions ( fig6 ). biomass formation measure by cdw and cell viability determined by cfu were similar to the parental strain , demonstrating that the increased yields were not caused by increased biomass and that augmented production had no negative effect on cell viability . use of the sophorolipid transporter to increase cellobiose lipid synthesis in ustilago maydis u . maydis dsm17146 was transformed with either the p1025 expression plasmid harboring the transporter , a digest hereof or a pcr fragment derived hereof as described in the material and methods section . for each of the three transformations , four colonies appearing on the selective plates were grown in non - selective medium ( ypd ) to screen for a stable integration event and gdna was isolated . the presence of the construct was verified by pcr with the primers gpdumfor and mdrinsertcheckrev and all four plasmid - derived transformants harbored the construct as well as all pcr - derived ones . two out of four digest - derived ones were positive as well . these two latter strains , as well as three randomly selected strains from the plasmid - derived ones , and three randomly selected strains from pcr - derived ones , were tested for their cellobiose lipid production as described in the material and methods section . altschul s . f ., t . l . madden , et al . 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