Fluxome study of Pseudomonas fluorescens reveals major reorganisation of carbon flux through central metabolic pathways in response to inactivation of the anti-sigma factor MucA

The bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens switches to an alginate-producing phenotype when the pleiotropic anti-sigma factor MucA is inactivated. The inactivation is accompanied by an increased biomass yield on carbon sources when grown under nitrogen-limited chemostat conditions. A previous metabolome study showed significant changes in the intracellular metabolite concentrations, especially of the nucleotides, in mucA deletion mutants compared to the wild-type. In this study, the P. fluorescens SBW25 wild-type and an alginate non-producing mucA- ΔalgC double-knockout mutant are investigated through model-based 13C-metabolic flux analysis (13C-MFA) to explore the physiological consequences of MucA inactivation at the metabolic flux level. Intracellular metabolite extracts from three carbon labelling experiments using fructose as the sole carbon source are analysed for 13C-label incorporation in primary metabolites by gas and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.