Effect of bile salts stress on protein synthesis of Lactobacillus casei Zhang revealed by 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis

Lactobacillus casei Zhang, isolated from koumiss in Inner Mongolia of China, is known from previous findings to be tolerant to bile salts. Bile salts secreted by mammals act as a natural antibacterial barrier and may serve as a component of innate immunity, as they have limited antagonistic effect against resident microflora. In this work, we compared the growth and protein expression patterns of L. casei Zhang with and without bile salts. Twenty-six proteins were found to be differentially expressed using 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Peptide mass fingerprinting was used to identify these proteins. Further verification by using real-time, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR and bioinformatics analysis showed that the implicated pathways are involved with a complex physiological response under bile salts stress, particularly including cell protection (DnaK and GroEL), modifications in cell membranes (NagA, GalU, and PyrD), and key components of central metabolism (PFK, PGM, CysK, LuxS, PepC, and EF-Tu). These results provide insight on the protein expression pattern of L. casei under bile salts stress and offer a new perspective for the molecular mechanisms involved in stress tolerance and adaptation of bacteria.