All genomic mutations in the antimicrobial surfactant-resistant mutant, Escherichia coli OW66, are involved in cell resistance to surfactant.

The spontaneous antimicrobial surfactant-resistant mutant, Escherichia coli OW66, has been isolated, and its physiological properties have been characterized in our previous paper (Ishikawa et al., J Appl Microbiol 92:261-268, 2002b). This report revealed that strain OW66 had seven mutations in their chromosomal DNA by comparative genomic hybridization microarray, and that their alternative functions were involved in cell resistance to antimicrobial surfactants. These mutations were located in oppB, ydcR, IVR(vacJ-yfdC), rpoN, rpoB, rpoC, and soxR. Furthermore, seven of the single-mutated isogenic strains and seven of the six-mutated isogenic strains were constructed from strains OW6 (NBRC106482) and OW66, respectively, through homologous recombination, and their resistances to an antimicrobial surfactant were measured using the minimum inhibitory concentration method. These results revealed that all six-mutated strains were more sensitive than strain OW66, and that the soxR66 mutation was independently involved in antimicrobial surfactant resistance of E. coli cells. Expression of soxR66 and soxS was increased in both strains OW66 and OW6-soxR66 without the surfactant treatment by the quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction analysis, compared with strain OW6. Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis also revealed that some proteins in the soxRS regulon, including Mn-SOD, were overexpressed in both strains OW66 and OW6-soxR66. These results indicate that the soxR66 mutation leads to the constitutive expression of the soxRS regulon, resulting in the acquired resistance of E. coli cells to an antimicrobial surfactant.