Heterologous expression of bacterial nitric oxide synthase gene: a potential biological method to control biofilm development in the environment

Abstract

The nitric oxide synthase gene from Bacillus subtilis was heterologously expressed in Pseudomonas putida using a broad-host expression vector. Both the performance of the nitric oxide-specific fluorescent probe and the quantitative assessment of the nitric oxide end products demonstrated the generation of nitric oxide. The endogenous nitric oxide increased the motility of P. putida and decreased the capacity of P. putida and other multispecies bacteria to develop biofilms. On the practical side, endogenous nitric oxide offers an advantage in generating continuous, controllable levels of nitric oxide, which suggests a new method to use nitric oxide in the control of biofilms.