Abstract
Recent studies have indicated that polyamines produced by gut microbes significantly influence host health; however, little is known about the microbial polyamine biosynthetic pathway except for that in Escherichia coli, a minor component of the gastrointestinal microbiota. Here, we investigated the polyamine biosynthetic ability of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, a predominant gastrointestinal bacterial species in humans. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis revealed that B. thetaiotaomicron cultured in polyamine-free minimal medium accumulated spermidine intracellularly at least during the mid-log and stationary phases. Deletion of the gene encoding a putative carboxyspermidine decarboxylase (casdc), which converts carboxyspermidine to spermidine, resulted in the depletion of spermidine and loss of decarboxylase activity in B. thetaiotaomicron. The Δcasdc strain also showed growth defects in polyamine-free growth medium. The complemented Δcasdc strain restored the spermidine biosynthetic ability, decarboxylase activity, and growth. These results indicate that carboxyspermidine decarboxylase is essential for synthesizing spermidine in B. thetaiotaomicron and contributes to the growth of this species.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Dr. Thomas J. Smith (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, USA) and Dr. Nicole Koropatkin (University of Michigan Medical School, USA) for technical advice and for the kind gift of molecular genetic tools for B. thetaiotaomicron (B. thetaiotaomicron MS39 (Δtdk), pExchange-tdk, and pNBU2-bla-ermGb). We acknowledge Dr. Anthony J. Michael (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, USA) for providing carboxyspermidine and for critically reading our manuscript. This study was supported by Grants-in-Aid from the Institute for Fermentation, Osaka (to K.T. and K.S.). We acknowledge National BioResource Project (NIG, Japan) for providing E. coli S17-1 λpir. We thank the Japan Collection of Microorganisms, RIKEN BRC, which is participating in the National BioResource Project of the MEXT, Japan for providing B. thetaiotaomicron JCM 5827T.
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This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. B. thetaiotaomicron JCM 5827T, an isolate from human feces, was purchased from Japan Collection of Microorganisms, RIKEN BRC. B. thetaiotaomicron MS39 (Δtdk) is a gift from Dr. Thomas J. Smith at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and Dr. Nicole Koropatkin at University of Michigan Medical School, and originated from the strain ATCC 29148T. This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Ishikawa Prefectural University.
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Sakanaka, M., Sugiyama, Y., Kitakata, A. et al. Carboxyspermidine decarboxylase of the prominent intestinal microbiota species Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron is required for spermidine biosynthesis and contributes to normal growth. Amino Acids 48, 2443–2451 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-016-2233-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-016-2233-0