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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2002, p. 5737-5740, Vol. 68, No. 11
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.11.5737-5740.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Sensitive In Situ Monitoring of a Recombinant Bioluminescent Yersinia enterocolitica Reporter Mutant in Real Time on Camembert Cheese
Ariel Maoz,1 Ralf Mayr,1 Geraldine Bresolin,1 Klaus Neuhaus,1 Kevin P. Francis,2 and Siegfried Scherer1*
Institut für Mikrobiologie, FML-Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, D-85350 Freising, Germany,1
Xenogen Corporation, Alameda, California 945012
Received 22 March 2002/
Accepted 5 August 2002

ABSTRACT
Bioluminescent mutants of
Yersinia enterocolitica were generated
by transposon mutagenesis using a promoterless, complete
lux operon (
luxCDABE) derived from
Photorhabdus luminescens, and
their production of light in the cheese environment was monitored.
Mutant B94, which had the
lux cassette inserted into an open
reading frame of unknown function was used for direct monitoring
of
Y.
enterocolitica cells on cheeses stored at 10°C by
quantifying bioluminescence using a photon-counting, intensified
charge-coupled device camera. The detection limit on cheese
was 200 CFU/cm
2. Bioluminescence of the reporter mutant was
significantly regulated by its environment (NaCl, temperature,
and cheese), as well as by growth phase, via the promoter the
lux operon had acquired upon transposition. At low temperatures,
mutant B94 did not exhibit the often-reported decrease of photon
emission in older cells. It was not necessary to include either
antibiotics or aldehyde in the food matrix in order to gain
quantitative, reproducible bioluminescence data. As far as we
know, this is the first time a pathogen has been monitored in
situ, in real time, in a "real-product" status, and at a low
temperature.

INTRODUCTION
Yersinia enterocolitica thrives on refrigerated food (
13). This
pathogen occurs mainly in meat products (
4,
7,
10), but it has
also been recovered from various cheeses, such as Camembert
cheese (
3,
11,
16,
17,
20). To monitor pathogens in food by
bioluminescence, various
luxAB reporter genes (encoding the
luciferase enzyme), predominantly those derived from
Vibrio spp., have been used to engineer bacteria (
1,
9,
18,
25). Using
this approach, photon emission had to be induced by addition
of
n-decylaldehyde, and bacterial enumeration was mostly done
by plating and subsequent counting of bioluminescent colonies
(
9,
18,
25).
Addition of an aldehyde can be circumvented by cloning the entire lux operon (luxCDABE) into bacterial cells. Bioluminescent cells containing the full-length lux operon of Photorhabdus luminescens have been used to monitor and track disease processes in living animals by measuring bioluminescence directly through the tissues of the animal. Successful applications have been demonstrated by monitoring bioluminescent Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Escherichia coli infections in animals (2, 5, 6, 19). The full-length lux cassette of P. luminescens has also been utilized for real-time monitoring of the adherence of bioluminescent E. coli O157:H7 to beef carcass surface tissue in situ (24). However, in that study, the bioluminescent reporter strain harbored the lux operon on a plasmid. Hence, all experiments had to be performed in the presence of an antibiotic to maintain the lux plasmid.
To fully benefit from bioluminescence as a noninvasive tool for research in all aspects of food safety, the system must be applicable under natural conditions. This means that the particular ecosystem investigated should be influenced as little as possible. By using the whole lux operon stably integrated into the bacterial chromosome, (i) the necessity to penetrate the contaminated food matrix with an aldehyde can be avoided. Furthermore, (ii) the competitive flora is not influenced by either the aldehyde, which can be toxic at high concentrations, or by an antibiotic added to maintain the bioluminescence character of the reporter strain. Since food is often stored refrigerated, monitoring pathogens in situ at low temperatures without a temperature shift for bioluminescence measurements is also desirable. To attain this, the reporter gene cassette needs to be controlled by a promoter that is active at cold storage temperatures. As a step towards these goals, we report on a bioluminescent Y. enterocolitica strain harboring the full-length lux operon in the genome, under the control of a promoter active in foodstuff at low temperatures.

Construction of bioluminescent reporter strains.
A pool of random
luxCDABE fusions was generated in
Y.
enterocolitica NCTC 10460 by mating this strain with
E.
coli S17-1
pir containing
a pUT-mini-Tn
5 luxCDABE-Km
r plasmid, as described by Winson
et al. (
28).
E.
coli S17-1
pir containing pUT-mini-Tn
5 luxCDABE-Km
r was grown at 37°C in Luria-Bertani (LB) broth (10 g of tryptone
per liter, 5 g of yeast extract per liter, 5 g of NaCl per liter
[pH 7.4]), supplied with 50 µg of ampicillin per ml, and
Y.
enterocolitica NCTC 10460 was grown in LB broth at 30°C
without any antibiotics. Both strains were grown to an optical
density at 600 nm (OD
600) of 0.5. For mating, 100 µl of
each culture was mixed, 800 µl of a 10 mM MgSO
4 solution
was added, and the culture was incubated at room temperature
for 5 min. The cells were pelleted (5 min at 3,000 rpm at room
temperature) in a model 113 centrifuge (Sigma Laborzentrifugen,
Osterode am Harz, Germany), resuspended in 100 µl of LB
broth before being spread onto LB agar plates (without antibiotics),
and incubated overnight at 30°C. The following morning,
each lawn of cells was removed from the plate surface by being
carefully scraped off. These cells were then resuspended in
13% glycerol, snap-frozen in five 1-ml aliquots, each in liquid
N
2, and stored at -70°C. One frozen aliquot was resuspended
in approximately 10 ml of LB broth to an OD
600 of 0.3. Subsequently,
100 µl of this suspension was plated on LB selection plates
(145 mm in diameter) containing 200 µg of kanamycin per
ml and 20 µg of chloramphenicol per ml. Kanamycin selects
for transpositional events, and chloramphenicol selects for
Y.
enterocolitica. After 24 h at 30°C, the plates were examined
for colonies that produced high levels of bioluminescence.

Selection of a suitable reporter strain.
Since the Tn
5 lux transposon integrates randomly into the
Yersinia chromosome, transposants were screened for strongly expressed
bioluminescence in the cheese environment after overnight incubation
at 30°C. Six of the brightest mutants were chosen for further
experiments. They were grown in brain heart infusion (BHI) broth
(Merck) supplemented with 2.5% NaCl (10°C, 48 h). A 0.3-ml
portion of a 100-fold dilution was applied to the surface of
purchased Camembert cheeses (80 g; 45% fat [dry weight]). Light
emission was measured by a photon-counting, intensified charge-coupled
device camera (model C2400-75H; Hamamatsu Photonics, Hamamatsu
City, Japan). After the film was exposed for 1 min (restrictor
position at 0.95), the images were processed with an Argus 20
image processor (Hamamatsu). Photon emission was quantified
by the Living-Image software package version 4.0 (Xenogen Corporation,
Alameda, Calif.). The measurements were performed over 7 days
at 10°C. Viable cell counts were enumerated by homogenizing
20 g of the Camembert cheese surface with 180 ml of 1.75% trisodium
citrate-dehydrate solution (pH 7.5), using a stomacher (model
Lab-Blender 400; Kleinfeld Labortechnik, Hannover, Germany).
Serial 10-fold dilutions of these suspensions were plated directly
on cefsulodin-irgasan-novobiocin (CIN; Oxoid) agar (30°C,
24 h) (
3,
12,
13). Strain B94 showed the highest photon output
per CFU (data not shown) and was chosen for further experiments.
Inserting the transposon in strain B94 did not influence the
growth rate (data not shown).

Microheterogeneity of Yersinia on cheese.
Using the intensified charge-coupled device camera, it is possible
to determine the location of the bioluminescent
Yersinia on
the cheese surface. The distribution of the bioluminescent cells
was quite irregular (Fig.
1). Although the entire cheese surface
was initially contaminated with
Yersinia, certain areas appeared
to become more highly colonized than others. This was also observed
for
E.
coli on beef carcasses (
24) and reflects the potential
of this approach to characterize the local microheterogeneity
of pathogen distribution in food.

Detection limit of strain B94.
The introduction of plasmids containing
luxCDABE and
luxABCDE constructs derived from
P.
luminescens into
E.
coli and
S.
aureus (
6) has demonstrated that the amount of light per cell strongly
depends on the measurement temperature,
lux construct, and host
strain used. As shown with
Y.
enterocolitica B94, the significant
dependence of light emission on temperature can also be observed
when the
luxCDABE construct is acquired by transposition. At
10°C, luciferase activity is about 15% of the one at 30°C
(data not shown). Strain B94, nevertheless, is a highly sensitive
reporter. To estimate the sensitivity of the method, bioluminescence
of the entire cheese surface was measured. The results (Fig.
2) demonstrate a high correlation between culture-derived viable
cell count and bioluminescence (
r2 = 0.98). We found an in situ
detection limit for
Y.
enterocolitica B94 on cheese of about
200 CFU/cm
2.

Light emission of Y. enterocolitica B94 is partly dependent on the growth phase.
Figure
2 shows that the bioluminescence per cell of strain B94
increases on the cheese surface over time. We therefore compared
the bioluminescence of strain B94 when this bacterium is grown
at various temperatures between 4 and 30°C to an OD
600 of
0.15 (log phase) and an OD
600 of 1.1 (stationary phase) (Fig.
3). Cultures of both growth temperatures were measured at the
same temperature (10°C). In the logarithmic growth phase,
the expression of light per cell appeared to be little affected
by the growth temperature, indicating a temperature-independent
regulation of the promoter in exponentially growing cultures.
At higher temperatures, stationary phase resulted in a significant
reduction of light emission (Fig.
3). The latter phenomenon
corresponds with the observations of other researchers working
with bacteria at temperatures between 28 and 40°C and using
different
lux systems derived from marine and terrestrial bacteria
in various gram-negative as well as gram-positive transformants
(
5,
14,
15,
26,
27). It has been reported that upon entrance
into stationary phase and during starvation, there is a decrease
in luciferase activity that corresponded to a decrease in the
metabolic activity of the population while the number of culturable
cells remained relatively stable (
26). In our study, the stationary-phase
cultures were not measured at the very beginning of this growth
phase (Fig.
3). Nevertheless, at 23 and 30°C, they still
yield a photon count of about 10% that of the logarithmic cultures.
These findings are in contrast with those of Francis and coworkers
(
5), who found a very steep decline of bioluminescence to nearly
zero within 1 to 3 h after the cells entered stationary phase.
They are, however, consistent with those of Unge et al. (
26)
and Marincs et al. (
14), who reported a gradual growth phase-dependent
light reduction. Observing similar differences with a number
of lactococcal promoters, Waterfield et al. (
27) demonstrated
that the rate of decrease of bioluminescence depends on both
the growth phase of the culture and the strength of the promoter,
with low-activity promoters displaying a more rapid decay. Hence,
our data may indicate that the
lux cassette of
Y.
enterocolitica B94 is regulated by a rather strong promoter.
The growth phase-dependent decrease of bioluminescence in
Y.
enterocolitica B94 is temperature dependent. Light emission
of stationary-phase cultures of
Y.
enterocolitica B94 grown
at 4, 10, and 15°C is strikingly different from that of
cultures propagated at higher temperatures (Fig.
3). Although
the photon counts of stationary-phase cultures at low temperatures
are lower than those of logarithmic cultures, they do not exhibit
the steep growth phase-dependent decline observed at 23 and
30°C. Instead, they are of the same magnitude as the ones
detected in logarithmic cultures. We could not find any corresponding
data on low-temperature measurements in the literature. Obviously,
the regulation of the promoter that controls the
lux operon
in
Y.
enterocolitica B94 is temperature dependent during stationary
phase, yielding stronger expression at low temperatures. This
observation indicates an important function of the promoter
and its original gene(s) in the cold stress response of
Y.
enterocolitica in the stationary phase. Furthermore, we observed an even higher
relative light unit rate per cell on Camembert cheese after
14 days at 10°C than during day 1 to 3, with a detection
limit around 200 CFU/cm
2 (Fig.
2). These data suggest an additional
upregulation of the promoter in advanced stationary-phase cultures.
According to these results, the promoter and the gene(s) originally
linked to it may play a role in starvation metabolism of
Y.
enterocolitica. These results demonstrate the suitability of
mutant B94 as a sensitive reporter in long-term experiments
at low temperatures, which is a setting common to food storage
at refrigeration temperatures.

Light emission of Y. enterocolitica B94 is salt dependent.
Mutant B94 was grown at 10°C in BHI broth with 2.5% salt
and without salt to a titer of 6
x 10
7 CFU/ml. Portions (0.1
ml) of a serially (tenfold) diluted culture were inoculated
on precooled BHI agar (10°C). Immediately after bioluminescence
was measured,
Y.
enterocolitica was enumerated by homogenizing
all the agar on the plate (20 ± 1 g) with 180 ml of 1.75%
trisodium citrate-dehydrate solution (pH 7.5) using a stomacher
(model Lab-Blender 400; Kleinfeld Labortechnik). Serial 10-fold
dilutions of these suspensions were plated directly on BHI agar
and incubated (30°C, 24 h), and total
Y.
enterocolitica counts were recorded. The correlation between bioluminescence
and viable cell count for cells grown on BHI agar with and without
2.5% salt is shown in Fig.
2. Clearly, the expression of luciferase
is stimulated in the presence of sodium chloride. This is significant
since the concentration of sodium chloride in soft cheese may
well reach this concentration (
23). The elevated light emission
in the presence of 2.5% NaCl is detectable in the whole range
of temperatures tested (4 to 37°C [data not shown]). While
the presence of 2.5% salt stimulates the light emission of
Y.
enterocolitica B94 in BHI broth, it reduces its growth rate
in this medium (data not shown), indicating stress conditions.
Hence, the promoter that regulates the inserted
lux cassette
in strain B94 may also be involved in the salt stress response
of
Y.
enterocolitica.
The finding that bioluminescence of mutant B94 on BHI agar was much lower than on the cheese, even in the presence of sodium chloride, was quite unexpected (Fig. 2). This could have been due to an underestimation of the viable cell count on cheese. CIN medium, however, is the most efficient medium for enumeration of Y. enterocolitica (8, 21, 22), and it appears unlikely that this approach should underestimate the cell count by a factor of 20. The difference could also be due to a repression of the promoter by BHI agar. Also, stimulation by some cheese constituents, the influence of the competitive flora, or the influence of more than one factor may play a role. This phenomenon is currently under investigation in our laboratory.
We have shown here that insertion of a transposon carrying a promoterless modified lux operon downstream of a suitable host promoter allows sensitive real-time monitoring of Y. enterocolitica in situ. However, since strongly expressed promoters are often regulated by a number of environmental factors, it is necessary to select appropriate reporter strains carefully with respect to the conditions prevalent in the foodstuff which will be under investigation. The cheese samples were not artificially influenced by any chemical, antibiotic, or physical treatment in order for bioluminescence measurements to be made. Thus, bacterial numbers can be quantified accurately. Our study shows that it is possible to bridge the gap towards a real-product status assessment of pathogens in real time and in situ, even at low temperatures.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut für Mikrobiologie, FML-Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, D-85350 Freising, Germany. Phone: 49 8161 713516. Fax: 49 8161 714512. E-mail:
Siegfried.Scherer{at}lrz.tum.de.


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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2002, p. 5737-5740, Vol. 68, No. 11
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.11.5737-5740.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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