Growth of Escherichia coli is inhibited upon exposure to a large volume of a harmful solvent, and there is an inverse correlation between the degree of inhibition and the log P OW of the solvent, where P OW is the partition coefficient measured for the partition equilibrium established between the n-octanol and water phases. The AcrAB-TolC efflux pump system is involved in maintaining intrinsic solvent resistance. We inspected the solvent resistance of ⌬acrAB and/or ⌬tolC mutants in the presence of a large volume of solvent. Both mutants were hypersensitive to weakly harmful solvents, such as nonane (log P OW ‫؍‬ 5.5). The ⌬tolC mutant was more sensitive to nonane than the ⌬acrAB mutant. The solvent entered the E. coli cells rapidly. Entry of solvents with a log P OW higher than 4.4 was retarded in the parent cells, and the intracellular levels of these solvents were maintained at low levels. The ⌬tolC mutant accumulated n-nonane or decane (log P OW ‫؍‬ 6.0) more abundantly than the parent or the ⌬acrAB mutant. The AcrAB-TolC complex likely extrudes solvents with a log P OW in the range of 3.4 to 6.0 through a first-order reaction. The most favorable substrates for the efflux system were considered to be octane, heptane, and n-hexane.

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A constitutively active mutant of histidine kinase sensor EvgS was found to confer multi-drug resistance (MDR) to an acrA-deficient Escherichia coli, indicating the relationship between the two-component system EvgAS and the expression of the MDR system. The observed MDR also depended on an outer-membrane channel, TolC. Microarray and S1 mapping assays indicated that, in the presence of this constitutive mutant EvgS, the level of transcription increased for some MDR genes, including the drug efflux genes emrKY, yhiUV, acrAB, mdfA and tolC. Transcription in vitro of emrK increased by the addition of phosphorylated EvgA. Transcription activation of tolC by the activated EvgS was, however, dependent on both EvgAS and PhoPQ (Mg 2+ -responsive two-component system), in agreement with the presence of the binding site (PhoP box) for the regulator PhoP in the tolC promoter region. Transcription in vitro of yhiUV also appears to require an as-yet-unidentified additional transcriptional factor besides EvgA. Taken together we propose that the expression of the MDR system is under a complex regulatory network, including the phosphorylated EvgA serving as the master regulator.

Alkaliphilic Bacillus sp. strain 41M-1, isolated from soil, produced xylan-degrading enzymes extracellularly. Optimum pH for the crude xylanase preparation was about pH 9, confirming the production of novel alkaline xylanase(s) by the isolate. Xylanases were induced by xylan, but were not produced in the presence of xylose, arabinose or glucose. Xylanase productivity was influenced by culture pH, and production at pH 10.5 was higher than that at pH 8.0. Zymogram analysis of the culture supernatant showed the alkaline xylanase with a molecular mass of 36 kDa.

Escherichia coli K-12 OST3410 was isolated previously as a stable cyclohexane-tolerant mutant derived from cyclohexane-sensitive strain JA300. A plasmid which provides cyclohexane tolerance to strain JA300 was isolated from the OST3410 genomic library. Subcloning and sequence analysis showed that the plasmid contained the robA gene, whose gene product was reported to bind specifically to the right border of oriC. We observed that the robA gene on the multicopy plasmid generally increased the organic solvent tolerance of several E. coli strains. We also observed an increase in the organic solvent tolerance of JA300 carrying the lac-robA fusion gene on a low-copy plasmid by isopropyl-␤-D-thiogalactopyranoside induction. Strain JA300 carrying the multicopy robA plasmid also showed an increase in resistance to a number of unrelated antibiotics and heavy metal ions, and the spectrum of resistance was significantly similar to that of the soxS-overexpressing strain.