Molecular and physiological adaptations of Lactococcus lactis at near-zero growth rates. Lactococcus lactis

This paper describes the molecular and physiological adaptations of Lactococcus lactis during the transition from a growing to a near-zero growth state using carbon-limited retentostat cultivation. Metabolic and transcriptomic analyses revealed that metabolic patterns shifted between homolactic and mixed-acid fermentation during the retentostat cultivation, which appeared to be controlled at the transcription level of the corresponding pyruvate-dissipation enzyme pathway encoding genes. Furthermore, during extended retentostat cultivation, cells continued to consume several amino acids, but also produced specific amino acids subsets, which may derive from the conversion of glycolytic intermediates. Under conditions of extremely low carbon availability, carbon catabolite repression was progressively relieved and alternative catabolic functions were found to be highly up-regulated, which was confirmed by enhanced initial acidification rates on various sugar substrates in cells obtained from near-zero growth cultures. Moreover, the expression of genes involved in multiple stress response mechanisms was gradually induced during extended retentostat cultivation, supporting the strong molecular focus on maintenance of cellular function and viability. The present integrated transcriptome and metabolome study provides molecular understanding of the adaptation of Lactococcus lactis KF147 to near-zero growth rate conditions, and expands our earlier analysis of the quantitative physiology of this bacterium at near-zero growth rates. Overall design: loop design of the samples including two shortcuts