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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbial Physiology and Metabolism
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1476958

Erucic acid utilization by Lactobacillus johnsonii N6.2

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    A multivariate nutritional analysis indicated that the consumption of erucic acid-rich food, a fatty acid (FA) found primarily in rapeseed and mustard oil, was positively correlated with higher counts of lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Furthermore, we showed Lactobacillus johnsonii N6.2, as well as other species of LAB tested from the former Lactobacillus genus, were able to efficiently use erucic acid (EA) as the source of FA. In this work, we identified significant changes induced in the FA profiles of L. johnsonii cultured with EA as the source of FA. We performed global transcriptomics to identify genes and pathways involved in EA utilization. It was found that L. johnsonii incorporates external fatty acids via a FakA/FakB and the plsX/plsY/plsC pathway for phosphatidic acid synthesis. It was found that cells grown in MRS with EA (MRS-E) significantly upregulated fakB2 and fakB4 when compared to cells grown in standard MRS with tween 80 as the source of FA. Additionally, in MRS-E, L. johnsonii N6.2 induced the expression of plsY2, plsC2 and plsC4 while the expression of pslX was constitutive during short term EA exposure. LC-MS analyses revealed that L. johnsonii N6.2 rapidly incorporates EA and synthesizes a variety of long chain fatty acids, including the health-relevant omega-9 monounsaturated fatty acids such as nervonic and gondoic acids.

    Keywords: Lactobacillus johnsonii, erucic acid, Long chain fatty acid, probiotic, nervonic acid

    Received: 06 Aug 2024; Accepted: 06 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Thompson, Beliakoff, Garrett, Gonzalez and Lorca. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Graciela L Lorca, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States

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