Molecular Cloning and Expression of Heat-stable Enterotoxin Gene from Swine Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli

돼지에서 유래한 병원성 대장균의 내열성 장독소 생산유전자의 Cloning 및 발현

Enterotoxigenic E. coli is one of the major causative agents of the infantile diarrhea and traveler's diarrhea. The heat-stable enterotoxin(ST) is thought to be a virulence factor in the pathogenesis of the diarrhea and to be a maker for identification of the enterotoxingeic E. coli from non pathogenic E. coli. The isolate of enterotoxigenlc E. coli was isolated from swine during 1989 year(from 5 to 10 month) in the Kyong-gi and Chung-Cheong provinces, and three strains(KM-4, KM-7 and KM-12) was selected from 189 isolates of ST producing E. coli. The detection of a ST produced of the isolated E. coli was performed by the infant mouse assay(IMA). This study was designed to know optimal conditions for the production of the ST and the molecular properties of plasmids of the enterotoxigenic E. coli. Amount of ST produced were the most at initial pH 8.5~9.0 of succinate salts medium culture. The cultural time of the same medium was accumulated the highest level of ST was at the 14 to 16 hours, and then stationary phase was at the 20 hours. From this experiment the KM-7 strain was selected among ST producing strains by IMA. Partial plasmid-curing experiment was done to select plasmid encoding for ST among other plasmids and then comparing the plasmid pattern of ST producing strain(KM-7) with those of other ST non-producing strains, it is found that ST gene exists on the about 80 Kbp plasmid. Each fragment of this plasmid digested with EcoRl was ligated to vector pBR 322 and transformed into E. coli K-12. A clone producing ST(eKT 53) was selected by IMA. The EcoRl digestion pattern of the isolated plasmid(pKD 37) from the ST producing clone it is indicated that the size of the inserted fragment in eKT 53 strain is 16 Kbp. The cultured supernatant of eKT 53 strain was positive result of ST production in IMA.

내열성장독소(ST)를 생산하는 병원성대장균(KS-4, KM-7, KM-12)을 설사돈으로부터 분리하고 몇가지 배양상 특성과 ST생산유전자의 성질을 조사하였다. 분리균은 succinate salts 배지의 pH가 8.5~9.0일 때 ST 생산량이 가장 많았으며, ST정제용 배지로는 succinate salts 배지가 가장 유리한 것으로 생각되어 진다. ST 생산, 축적은 분리균 모두 14~16 시간에서 가장 높았고 균체량은 배양 시작 후 20시간에 가장 많았다. ST 생산 능력이 가장 우수한 KM-7균주로 부터 ST생산 유전을 함유하는 약 80Kbp의 plasmid를 분리하고 EcoRI 제한효소를 절단한 16Kbp의 DNA절편을 pBR 322 vector DNA에 접합시킨 pKD 37 plasmid를 E. coli K-12에 형질전화시켜서 KM-7 보다 ST 생산능력이 우수한 균주(eKT 53)를 얻었다.