Furthermore, proteomic studies provide information on posttranslational modifications, which cannot be obtained from mRNA expression profiles; these have proven critical to our understanding of proper physiological protein function, translocation, and subcellular localization. Ideally, information obtained from these technologies needs to be integrated to better understand the phenotypic characteristics of the cell under a given condition [15]. Recently, combined transcriptome and proteome approaches have allowed large-scale analysis of biological systems at the mRNA and protein levels, providing us with a wealth of information that is useful in data-driven

discovery [16–19]. see more In this paper, we report the global expression changes in the gene and protein levels of E. coli K-12 W3110 and ada mutant strains in response to alkylating agents. In addition, the differences between the selleck chemical wild-type and mutant strains without treatment of alkylating agents were characterized at transcriptome and proteome levels. The analysis of time- and selleck screening library strain-dependent adaptive responses revealed the regulatory and physiological characteristics of the Ada-dependent adaptive response in E. coli. Results and discussion Growth profiles of E. coli W3110 and

ada mutant strains under MMS-treated and -untreated conditions Growth of the ada mutant strain was reduced in LB medium without MMS addition according to culture time, and reached the final OD600 of 3.48, which was about 1.5-fold lower than that of the wild-type (Figure 1). In order to induce adaptive responses that increase resistance to alkylation damage to DNA, cells were treated with 0.04% MMS at an OD600 of 0.4 [20]. As shown in Bcl-w Figure 1, the growth of both strains gradually retarded following MMS addition. The

final OD600 of 3.70 and 2.22 were reached at 11 h for the wild-type and the ada mutant strains, respectively, which were significantly lower than those of the control cultures. However, there were no noticeable differences in cell size and morphology between the ada mutant and its parent strains. Growth of the ada mutant strain was found to be additionally inhibited after the MMS treatment. This indicates that the defect in the ada gene negatively influences cell growth even under the normal condition, and especially the ada product has an important role in adaptive responses when alkylating agents are present, as has been shown previously [21]. The difference of growth between the strains will be discussed later combined with transcriptome and proteome analyses. It should be noted that the last sampling points are in the middle of stationary phase for all strains with and without MMS treatment, which becomes evident when the growth curve is redrawn in log-scale. Figure 1 Growth profiles of E. coli W3110 (circle) and its ada mutant (triangle) strains. Each strain was cultivated with or without 0.04% MMS treatment (open or filled symbols, respectively) at the exponential phase (at 2.