Engineering Alkane-Inducible Fimbriation in Escherichia Coli

Fimbriae are small, hair-like appendages arranged on many bacteria’s outer-membrane surfaces used for binding to biotic and abiotic surfaces to resist shear forces and attach to nutrient sources. Fimbriae are important in the initial attachment of cells to a substrate as well as the subsequent irreversible attachment to a surface. In this investigation, E. coli was engineered to over-express fimbriae in response to the presence of IPTG and DCPK. The over-expression of fimbriae in E. coli resulted in a pronounced response to the agglutination of mannose-containing yeast cells, causing them to sediment from solution at a much faster rate than wild-type or fimbrial deletion strains. Furthermore, the presence of fimbriae resulted in a significantly higher partitioning of cells into hydrocarbon sources across a range of alkanes. Lastly, the presence of fimbriae was shown to be essential in the development of biofilms, where only strains expressing fimbriae resulted in biofilm formation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• McLay, Ryan B.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Conrad, Jacinta C.
• Cirino, Patrick C.

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Rodrigues, Debora F.

• Escherichia coli
• Fimbriae/pili
• IPTG-inducible
• DCPK-inducible
• Hydrocarbons
• Alkanes
• Microbial adhesion to hydrocarbons (MATH)
• Specific biofilm formation (SBF)
• Yeast agglutination assay (YAA)
• Biofilms
• Bioremediation
• Fimbriation

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10657/3205

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/3205