Transcriptome profiling of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 in response to agmatine

The dairy strain Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 (formerly GE2-14) synthesizes the biogenic amine putrescine from agmatine via the agmatine deiminase (AGDI) pathway [1]. The AGDI cluster of L. lactis is composed by five genes aguR, aguB, aguD, aguA and aguC. The last four genes are co-transcribed as a single policistronic mRNA forming the catabolic operon aguBDAC, which encodes the proteins necessary for agmatine uptake and its conversion into putrescine [1], [2]. The first gene of the cluster, aguR, encodes a transmembrane protein that functions as a one-component signal transduction system that senses the agmatine concentration of the medium and accordingly regulates the transcription of aguBDAC[2]. The catabolic operon aguBDAC is transcriptionally activated by agmatine [2] and transcriptionally regulated by carbon catabolite repression (CCR) via glucose, but not by other sugars such as lactose or galactose [1], [3]. On the contrary, the transcription of the aguR regulatory gene is not subject to CCR regulation [1], [3] nor is regulated by agmatine [2]. In this study we report the transcriptional profiling of L. lactis subsp. cremoris CECT 8666 grown in M17 medium with galactose (GalM17) as carbon source and supplemented with agmatine, compared to that of the strain grown in the same culture medium without agmatine. The transcriptional profiling data of agmatine-regulated genes were deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database under Accession no. GSE74808.