Template:2011/Team:Amsterdam/CspA C

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Usage

This brick was developed by team [http://2011.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam Amsterdam 2011] to create cold resistance BioBricks, or CryoBricks. Because of the high similarity between the Polaribacter irgensii's CspA and CspC genes, it's expected they can be used interchangeably.

At the time of this writing, there are four protein generators incorporating either BBa_K538003 or K538004. Each of them comprises a promoter, an RBS and a coding region, but no terminator. The RBS is, in each of the four generators, the strongest of the BBa_B0034. The promoter is either the Lac operon's pLacI promoter (BBa_R0010) or the pBAD derived promoter team [http://2009.igem.org/Team:British_Columbia British Columbia 2009] developed (BBa_K206000). The codes of the generators incorporating CspA and CspC are listed below.


For an up to date list of other BioBricks incorporating the CspA or CspC genes, refer to their respective related parts pages:


Biology

While exposure to low temperatures represses the expression of most proteins, cold shock protein (Csp) expression is actually induced by this. Jones and Inouye showed E. coli's CspA concentration can increase over 200-fold within 1.5 hours, when exposed to cold shock.[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2958.1994.tb00359.x/pdf] CspA functions as an RNA chaperone,[http://www.jbc.org/content/272/1/196.full] capable of melting stable secundary structures in mRNA, and in doing so facilitating their translation at low temperatures.[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC207108/pdf/jbacter00084-0044.pdf][http://www.jbc.org/content/274/6/3407.full] Its nucleic acid binding properties are mediated by a β-barrel structure, which is known as the cold shock domain and is common to all cold shock proteins whose structures have been clarified. In particular, two recurring motifs - RNP1 and RNP2 - are essential for cold shock proteins' ability to bind RNA.[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2958.1995.tb02431.x/abstract]

E. coli 's genome comprises a family of 9 highly similar RNA chaperones (CspA through CspI), 4 of which are cold-induced.[http://www.springerlink.com/content/jtnbcavcdpg3xey4.pdf] Deletion of one, two or three of the cold-induced chaperones does not affect cell viability at low temperatures, but a quadruple knock-out strain exhibits a cold-sensitive phenotype. Xia, Ke and Inouye not only made and characterised these knock-out strains, but went on to show the cold-sensitive phenotype can be repressed by overexpressing any of the remaining members of the Csp family, with the exception of CspD.[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2958.2001.02372.x/pdf] (Overexpressing CspD did, however, increase the cold resistance of the wild-type strain.) The apparent redundancy in the functioning of E. coli 's cold shock proteins suggests that they carry out a task which is key to cell survival.

Uh et al. identified a blind spot in the scientific community's understanding of cold shock proteins, stating the insights reported above are based mainly on studies of mesophilic bacteria. To fill this gap, they investigated a bacterium isolated from Arctic sea sediment (Polaribacter irgensii) and, following a homology-based selection procedure, cloned two of its genes (CspA and CspC) into E. coli.[http://www.springerlink.com/content/qr2q5722j0t78653.pdf] They demonstrated expression of either of these genes can rescue the cold-sensitive phenotype Xia, Ke and Inouye observed in their quadruple knock-out. In addition to this, they show P. irgensii 's cold shock proteins drastically increase E. coli 's ability to survive freeze/thaw cycles. (Figure 1)


Characterisation

Taking all the above into account, team [http://2011.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam Amsterdam 2011] considered Polaribacter irgensii 's cold shock proteins to be viable candidates for the development of their cold resistance BioBricks, or CryoBricks. It's currently being investigated whether Uh et al. 's results can be reproduced with parts comprising BBa_K538003 and BBa_K538004, and if expressing CspA or CspC in E. coli modulates how temperature influences its growth rate.

[Update pending; waiting for lab results]

In case expression of CspA and CspC increases E. coli 's growth rate at low temperatures, team [http://2011.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam Amsterdam 2011] expects a similar result when transforming related species with their bricks. Plans were made to investigate this in some bacterial species, but constraints on time made this unfeasible.


Safety

There are risks involved with enhancing bacterial cold resistance and facilitating their growth at low temperatures. Please refer to the [http://2011.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam/Project/Safety safety page] of this brick's developers.


References

  1. Jones & Inouye The cold shock response - a hot topic. Mol. Microbiol. 11, 811-818 (1994)
  2. Jiang, Hou & Inouye CspA, the major cold-shock protein of Escherichia coli, is an RNA chaperone. J. Biol. Chem. 272, 196-202 (1997)
  3. Jones, Krah, Tafuri & Wolffe DNA gyrase, CS7.4, and the cold shock response in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 174, 5798-5802 (1992)
  4. Schindler et al. The family of cold shock proteins of Bacillus subtilis - Stability and dynamics in vitro and in vivo. J. Biol. Chem. 274, 3407-3413 (1999)
  5. Schröder et al. Mutational analysis of the putative nucleic acid-binding surface of the cold-shock domain, CspB, revealed an essential role of aromatic and basic residues in binding of single-stranded DNA containing the Y-box motif. Mol. Microbiol. 16, 699-708 (1995)
  6. Ermolenko & Makhatadze Bacterial cold-shock proteins. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 59, 1902-1913 (2002)
  7. Xia, Ke & Inouye Acquirement of cold-sensitivity by quadruple deletion of the cspA family and its supression by PNPase S1 domain in Escherichia coli. Mol. Microbiol. 40, 179-188(2001)
  8. Uh et al. Rescue of a Cold-Sensitive Mutant at Low Temperatures by Cold Shock Proteins from Polaribcater irgensii KOPRI 22228 J. Microbiol. 48, 798-802 (2010)