Biology subjects

Murphy, B. T.

Publications and source records attributed to Murphy, B. T..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

An extremophilic Nocardiopsis strain from Great Salt Lake expands the taxonomic range of mycolic acid biosynthesis

Mycolic acids, long-chain fatty acids that form the characteristic and relatively impermeable mycomembrane, have long been considered a defining chemotaxonomic feature of the order Mycobacteriales. Here, we report that Nocardiopsis bonnevillensis, a new type strain isolated from the hypersaline environment of Great Salt Lake, is the first organism outside of this order known to produce mycolic acids. Lipid profiling, acid-fast staining, isoniazid sensitivity, and genome mining confirmed hallmark features of mycolic acid biosynthesis. Evaluation of the strains metabolic capabilities led to the isolation of bonnevanoside, a thiophenyl nonulopyranoside reported here for the first time from a natural source. Moreover, additional Great Salt Lake-derived Nocardiopsis isolates exhibited acid-fast staining, suggesting that this trait may be more widespread than previously recognized. Altogether, these findings expand the taxonomic distribution of mycolic acid biosynthesis, challenge long-standing chemotaxonomic boundaries, and highlight the potential ecological significance of mycolate-containing envelopes in supporting bacterial survival in extreme environments.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Borrelia burgdorferi BB0346 is an Essential, Structurally Variant LolA Homolog that is Primarily Required for Homeostatic Localization of Periplasmic Lipoproteins

In diderm bacteria, the Lol pathway canonically mediates the periplasmic transport of lipoproteins from the inner membrane (IM) to the outer membrane (OM) and therefore plays an essential role in bacterial envelope homeostasis. After extrusion of modified lipoproteins from the IM via the LolCDE complex, the periplasmic chaperone LolA carries lipoproteins through the periplasm and transfers them to the OM lipoprotein insertase LolB, itself a lipoprotein with a LolA-like fold. Yet, LolB homologs appear restricted to {psi}-proteobacteria and are missing from spirochetes like the tick-borne Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi, suggesting a different hand-off mechanism at the OM. Here, we solved the crystal structure of the B. burgdorferi LolA homolog BB0346 (LolABb) at 1.9 [A] resolution. We identified multiple structural deviations in comparative analyses to other solved LolA structures, particularly a unique LolB-like protruding loop domain. LolABb failed to complement an Escherichia coli lolA knockout, even after codon optimization, signal I peptide adaptation, and a C-terminal chimerization which had allowed for complementation with an -proteobacterial LolA. Analysis of a conditional B. burgdorferi lolA knockout strain indicated that LolABb was essential for growth. Intriguingly, protein localization assays indicated that initial depletion of LolABb led to an emerging mislocalization of both IM and periplasmic OM lipoproteins, but not surface lipoproteins. Together, these findings further support the presence of two separate primary secretion pathways for periplasmic and surface OM lipoproteins in B. burgdorferi and suggest that the distinct structural features of LolABb allow it to function in a unique LolB-deficient lipoprotein sorting system. SIGNIFICANCEBorrelia spirochetes causing Lyme disease and relapsing fever have unusual double-membrane envelopes that instead of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) display abundant surface lipoproteins. We recently showed that secretion of these surface lipoproteins in Borrelia burgdorferi depends on a distant homolog of the canonical LPS outer membrane translocase LptD. Here, we probed the role of the B. burgdorferi Lol pathway in lipoprotein sorting and secretion. We show that the periplasmic chaperone LolA is essential, functionally different from E. coli LolA, with structural features of a bifunctional lipoprotein carrier protein operating without a downstream LolB outer membrane lipoprotein insertase. Depletion of LolA did not impact surface lipoprotein localization but led to a marked mislocalization of inner membrane lipoproteins to the outer membrane. This further supports two parallel, yet potentially interacting Borrelia lipoprotein transport pathways that are responsible for either secreting surface lipoprotein virulence factors or maintaining proper distribution of lipoproteins within the periplasmic space.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

Inducible CRISPRi-based operon silencing and selective in trans gene complementation in Borrelia burgdorferi

To accelerate genetic studies on the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi, we developed an enhanced CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) approach for IPTG-inducible repression of specific B. burgdorferi genes. The entire system is encoded on a compact 11-kb shuttle vector plasmid that allows for inducible expression of both the sgRNA module and a non-toxic codon-optimized dCas9 protein. We validated this CRISPRi system by targeting the genes encoding for OspA and OspB, abundant surface lipoproteins co-expressed by a single operon, and FlaB, the major subunit forming the periplasmic flagella. As in other systems, sgRNAs complementary to the non-template strand were consistently effective in gene repression, with 4- to 994-fold reductions in targeted transcript levels and concomitant reductions of in proteins levels. Furthermore, we showed that ospAB knockdowns could be selectively complemented in trans for OspA expression via the insertion of synonymous or non-synonymous CRISPRi-resistant PAM mutant (PAM*) ospA alleles into a unique site within the plasmid. Together, this establishes CRISPRi PAM* as a robust new genetic tool to simplify the study of B. burgdorferi genes, bypassing the need for gene disruptions by allelic exchange and avoiding rare-codon toxicity from heterologous expression of dCas9. SIGNIFICANCEBorrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, is a tick-borne pathogen of global importance. Here, we expand the genetic toolbox for studying B. burgdorferi physiology and pathogenesis by establishing a single-plasmid-based CRISPRi system with optional in trans complementation for the functional study of essential and non-essential proteins.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2021

Relationship between bacterial phylotype and specialized metabolite production in the culturable microbiome of two freshwater sponges

Microbial drug discovery programs rely heavily on accessing bacterial diversity from the environment to acquire new specialized metabolite (SM) lead compounds for the therapeutic pipeline. Therefore, knowledge of how certain bacterial taxa are distributed in nature, in addition to the degree of variation of SM production within those taxa, is critical to informing these front-end discovery efforts and making the overall sample collection and bacterial library creation process more efficient. In the current study we employed MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and the bioinformatics pipeline IDBac to analyze diversity within phylotype groupings and SM profiles of hundreds of bacterial isolates from two Eunapius fragilis freshwater sponges, collected 1.5 km apart. We demonstrated that within two sponge samples of the same species, the culturable bacterial populations contained significant overlap in approximate genus-level phylotypes but mostly non-overlapping populations of isolates when grouped lower than the level of genus. Further, correlations between bacterial phylotype and SM production varied at the species level and below, suggesting SM distribution within bacterial taxa must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. Our results suggest that two E. fragilis freshwater sponges collected in similar environments can exhibit large culturable diversity on a species-level scale, thus researchers should scrutinize the isolates with analyses that take both phylogeny and SM production into account in order to optimize the chemical space entering into a downstream bacterial library.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2019

Addition of insoluble fiber to isolation media allows for increased metabolite diversity of lab-cultivable microbes derived from zebrafish gut samples

There is a gap in measured microbial diversity when comparing genomic sequencing techniques versus cultivation from environmental samples in a laboratory setting. Standardized methods in artificial environments may not recapitulate the environmental conditions that native microbes require for optimal growth. For example, the intestinal tract houses microbes at various pH values as well as minimal oxygen and light environments. These microbes are also exposed to an atypical source of carbon: dietary fiber compacted in fecal matter. To investigate how the addition of insoluble fiber to isolation media could affect the cultivation of microbes from zebrafish intestines, an isolate library was built and analyzed using the bioinformatics pipeline IDBac. The addition of fiber led to an increase in bacterial growth and encouraged the growth of species from several phyla. Furthermore, fiber addition altered the metabolism of the cultivated gut-derived microbes and induced the production of unique metabolites that were not produced when microbes were otherwise grown on standard isolation media. Addition of this inexpensive carbon source to media supported the cultivation of a diverse community whose specialized metabolite production may more closely replicate their metabolite production in vivo.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2017

Coupling MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry protein and specialized metabolite analyses to rapidly discriminate bacterial function

For decades, researchers have lacked the ability to rapidly correlate microbial identity with bacterial metabolism. Since specialized metabolites are critical to bacterial function and survival in the environment, we designed a data acquisition and bioinformatics technique (IDBac) that utilizes in situ matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) to analyze protein and specialized metabolite spectra of single bacterial colonies from agar plates. We demonstrated the power of our approach by discriminating between two Bacillus subtilis colonies in under 30 minutes, which differ by a single genomic mutation, solely on the basis of their differential ability to produce cyclic peptide antibiotics surfactin and plipastatin. Next, we employed our IDBac technique to detect subtle intra-species differences in the production of metal scavenging acyl-desferrioxamines in a group of eight freshwater Micromonospora isolates that share >99% sequence similarity in the 16S rRNA gene. Finally, we employed our method to simultaneously extract protein and specialized metabolite MS profiles from unidentified species of Lake Michigan sponge-associated bacteria cultivated on an agar plate. In just 3 hours, we created hierarchical protein MS groupings of 11 environmental isolates (10 MS replicates each, for a total of 110 samples) that accurately mirrored phylogenetic groupings. We further distinguished isolates within these groupings, which share nearly identical 16S rRNA gene sequence identity, based on inter- and intra-species differences in specialized metabolite production. To our knowledge, IDBac is the first attempt to couple in situ MS analyses of protein content and specialized metabolite production to allow the distinction of closely related bacterial colonies.\n\nSignificanceMass spectrometry is a powerful technique that has been used to identify bacteria via protein content, and to assess bacterial function in an environment via analysis of specialized metabolites. However, until now these analyses have operated independently, and this has resulted in the inability to rapidly connect bacterial phylogenetic identity with patterns of specialized metabolism. To bridge this gap, we designed a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry data acquisition and bioinformatics pipeline (IDBac) to discriminate both intact protein and specialized metabolite spectra directly from bacterial cells grown on agar. To our knowledge, this is the first technique that organizes bacteria into highly similar phylogenetic groups and allows for comparison of metabolic differences of hundreds of isolates in just a few hours.

microbiology↗