In comparison to the wild type, these results suggest that RpoS is important for

chitobiose utilization, as the rpoS mutant cultured in the absence of free GlcNAc and supplemented with chitobiose could not initially utilize free chitobiose as a source of GlcNAc. A74 cultured in the presence of 150 μM chitobiose reached a peak cell density after the second exponential phase of 4.8 × 107 cells ml-1 by 334 h before entering stationary phase. In contrast, A74 cultured in the presence of 15 μM chitobiose reached a peak density of 2.2 3-MA × 107 cells ml-1 at 287 hours before AZD1152 ic50 blebbing and entering a second death phase in which cell numbers declined to 1.5 × 105 cells ml-1. At 525 h, cells cultured with 15 μM chitobiose entered a third exponential growth phase, and grew to a peak cell density of 1.4 × 107 cells ml-1 before entering stationary phase. With exception of the first death phase, these results are consistent with those obtained for the wild type cultured in 15 μM chitobiose, and further support our hypothesis that the source of GlcNAc during growth in the second exponential phase in the wild type, and the third exponential phase in the rpoS mutant, is

not free chitobiose. Inspection of A74 growth without GlcNAc and without chitobiose revealed triphasic growth similar to, though less pronounced find more than, that observed in A74 cultured in 15 μM chitobiose (Fig. 4B). As expected, cells reached a density of 2.2 × 106 cells ml-1 in the first exponential phase before blebbing and entering the first death phase. At 189 h the rpoS mutant entered a second exponential phase, and reached a peak density of 6.5 × 105 cells ml-1 at 236 h. This second exponential phase corresponds to that observed when A74 is grown in the presence of chitobiose, suggesting there is a small amount of free chitobiose present

in BSK-II. After a second death phase, cells entered a third exponential phase at 385 h and Selleck Baf-A1 reached a peak cell density of 1.4 × 107 cells ml-1 at 574 h before entering stationary phase. This final exponential phase may explain the slight increase in chbC expression observed by qRT-PCR at 381 h (Fig. 3). To confirm the role of RpoS in chitobiose utilization, we evaluated the growth of the rpoS complemented mutant, WC12, in BSK-II without GlcNAc and supplemented with low (5 μM) and high (75 μM) concentrations of chitobiose (Fig. 4C). As expected, growth of the complemented mutant was similar to that observed for the wild type. In the presence of high concentrations of chitobiose, the complemented mutant exhibited a single exponential phase and reached a peak density of 8.2 × 107 cells ml-1 by 117 h before entering stationary phase. In contrast, when the complemented mutant was cultured with the low concentration (5 μM) of chitobiose biphasic growth was observed. In the first exponential phase cells grew to a peak cell density of 5.2 × 106 cells ml-1 at 96 h before blebbing and entering a death phase. This was a 3.