• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.672-677
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• 2005

The standard reference collection of strains for E. coli, the ECOR collection, was analyzed by a genome-based typing method. Seventy-one ECOR strains were subjected to repetitive extragenic palindromic PCR genome fingerprinting with BOX primers (BOX-PCR). Using a similarity value of 0.8 or more after cluster analysis of BOX-PCR fingerprinting patterns to define the same genotypes, we identified 28 genotypes in the ECOR collection. Shannon's entropy-based diversity index was 3.07, and the incident-based coverage estimator indicated potentially 420 genotypes among E. coli populations. Chi-square test of goodness-of-fit showed statistically significant association between the genotypes defined by BOX-PCR fingerprinting and the groups previously defined by multi-locus enzyme electrophoresis. This study suggests that the diversification of E. coli strains in natural populations is actively ongoing, and rep-PCR fingerprinting is a convenient and reliable method to type E. coli strains for the purposes ranging from ecology to quarantine.ine.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.446-451
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• 2008

We assessed heterologous protein expression in 64 strains obtained from the Escherichia coli Reference (ECOR) collection, a collection representing diverse natural E. coli populations. A plasmid generating a glutathione S-transferase and plant carbonic anhydrase fusion protein (GST-CA) under the control of the tac promoter was introduced into the ECOR strains, and the quantity of the fusion protein was determined by SDS-PAGE. The foreign protein was generated at various levels, from very high (40 strains, high producers) to very low (six strains, low producers). Immunoblotting showed that the high producers expressed approximately 250-500 times more GST-CA protein than the low producers. The results of semi-quantitative RT-PCR showed that the low producers generated mRNA levels comparable to those of the high producers, thereby suggesting that, at least in this case, inefficient translation is a major cause of the low production. We introduced a different plasmid, which expressed a maltose binding protein and plant guanylate kinase fusion protein (MBP-GK) into the six low producers. Interestingly, five of these expressed MBP-GK at very high levels. Thus, we conclude that the production of a particular protein from an expression vector can vary considerably, depending on the host strain. Strains in the ECOR collection could function as useful alternative hosts when a desired level of protein expression is not obtained from commonly used strains, such as E. coli K12 or B derivatives.