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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 1999, p. 3033-3041, Vol. 65, No. 7
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The groESL Chaperone Operon of
Lactobacillus johnsonii
D. Carey
Walker,1,
Hany S.
Girgis,2 and
Todd R.
Klaenhammer1,2,*
Departments of
Microbiology1 and Food
Science,2 Southeast Dairy Foods Research Center,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7624
Received 30 November 1998/Accepted 23 March 1999
The Lactobacillus johnsonii VPI 11088 groESL operon was localized on the chromosome near the
insertion element IS1223. The operon was initially cloned
as a series of three overlapping PCR fragments, which were sequenced
and used to design primers to amplify the entire operon. The amplified
fragment was used as a probe to recover the chromosomal copy of the
groESL operon from a partial library of L. johnsonii VPI 11088 (NCK88) DNA, cloned in the shuttle vector
pTRKH2. The 2,253-bp groESL fragment contained three
putative open reading frames, two of which encoded the ubiquitous GroES
and GroEL chaperone proteins. Analysis of the groESL
promoter region revealed three transcription initiation sites, as well as three sets of inverted repeats (IR) positioned between the transcription and translation start sites. Two of the three IR sets
bore significant homology to the CIRCE elements, implicated in negative
regulation of the heat shock response in many bacteria. Northern
analysis and primer extension revealed that multiple temperature-sensitive promoters preceded the groESL
chaperone operon, suggesting that stress protein production in L. johnsonii is strongly regulated. Maximum groESL
transcription activity was observed following a shift to 55°C, and a
15 to 30-min exposure of log-phase cells to this temperature increased
the recovery of freeze-thawed L. johnsonii VPI 11088. These
results suggest that a brief, preconditioning heat shock can be used to
trigger increased chaperone production and provide significant
cross-protection from the stresses imposed during the production of
frozen culture concentrates.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Food Science, Box 7624, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7624. Phone: (919) 515-2971. Fax: (919) 515-7124. E-mail: klaenhammer{at}ncsu.edu.

Paper FSR98-38 of the Journal Series of the Department of Food
Science, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh.

Present address: Nestle Research Center, Vers-Chez-Les-Blanc, 1000 Lausanne 26,
Switzerland.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 1999, p. 3033-3041, Vol. 65, No. 7
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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