Morphological Features and Cold-Response Gene Expression in Mesophilic Bacillus cereus Group and Psychrotolerant Bacillus cereus Group under Low Temperature

At low temperatures, psychrotolerant B. cereus group strains exhibit a higher growth rate than mesophilic strains do. However, the different survival responses of the psychrotolerant strain (BCG(34)) and the mesophilic strain (BCG(T)) at low temperatures are unclear. We investigated the morphological and genomic features of BCG(T) and BCG(34) to characterize their growth strategies at low temperatures. At low temperatures, morphological changes were observed only in BCG(T). These morphological changes included the elongation of rod-shaped cells, whereas the cell shape in BCG(34) was unchanged at the low temperature. A transcriptomic analysis revealed that both species exhibited different growth-related traits during low-temperature growth. The BCG(T) strain induces fatty acid biosynthesis, sulfur assimilation, and methionine and cysteine biosynthesis as a survival mechanism in cold systems. Increases in energy metabolism and fatty acid biosynthesis in the mesophilic B. cereus group strain might explain its ability to grow at low temperatures. Several pathways involved in carbohydrate mechanisms were downregulated to conserve the energy required for growth. Peptidoglycan biosynthesis was upregulated, implying that a change of gene expression in both RNA-Seq and RT-qPCR contributed to sustaining its growth and rod shape at low temperatures. These results improve our understanding of the growth response of the B. cereus group, including psychrotolerant B. cereus group strains, at low temperatures and provide information for improving bacterial inhibition strategies in the food industry.