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2E - Genomics, Proteonomics, Metabolomics (TUP/121) Functional genomics of Escherichia coli as a tool in ecotoxicology. Brown, Angela1, Snape, Jason2, Harwood, Colin1, Curtis, Thomas1, Head, Ian1, 1 University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK2 AstraZeneca, Brixham, UK ABSTRACT- Many new synthetic chemicals are introduced by companies and most will eventually reach the aquatic environment. If wastewaters containing these chemicals are not treated before discharge there will be profound effects on aquatic life, such as disappearance of plant life and death of fish. In order to ensure this does not occur the chemicals are put through ecotoxicology tests. Standard biological tests include measurement of growth inhibition of bacteria in response to standard toxic compounds, for example para-nitrophenol. Whilst these tests determine inhibition effects on the growth of the cells they offer no insights into why the bacteria are inhibited. To obtain a greater understanding of the biological effects of toxic chemicals, the effects of para-nitrophenol on gene expression in E. coli was determined using reporter strains of E. coli marked with a beta-galactosidase gene downstream of universal stress response genes (uspA and uspB) and gene array technology. Data from gene expression studies were directly compared with bacterial growth inhibition tests of E. coli in response to para-nitrophenol. Experiments with the marked strains informed subsequent array analysis of global gene expression patterns in E. coli. Commercially available gene arrays containing over 4,000 E. coli genes were challenged with labelled cDNA from E. coli MG1655 cells grown in the presence and absence of para-nitrophenol. The results of the studies of expression of the universal stress response and global gene expression using arrays will be presented. Key words: ecotoxicology test, functional genomics, para-nitrophenol, Escherichia coli |
