Monitoring of the multiple bacteriocin production by Enterococcus faecium NKR-5-3 through a developed liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry-based quantification system

Enterococcus faecium NKR-5-3 produces four antimicrobial peptides referred here as enterocins NKR-5-3A, B, C and D. A two-step electrospray ionization-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (ESI-LC/MS)-based quantification system was developed to monitor its multiple bacteriocin production profiles, which is essential in understanding the complex production regulation mechanism of strain NKR-5-3. The developed ESI-LC/MS-based quantification system can easily monitor the multiple bacteriocin production of this strain. Using the developed system, the production of enterocin NKR-5-3B was found to be not as variable as those of the other enterocins in different cultivation media. Production of enterocin NKR-5-3B was also found to have a wider optimum incubation temperature (20-30°C) than enterocins NKR-5-3A, C and D (25°C). Furthermore, at least 2?nM of the bacteriocin-like inducing peptide, enterocin NKR-5-3D, regulated the production of NKR-5-3 enterocins except enterocin NKR-5-3B. These findings taken together suggest that enterocin NKR-5-3B has an independent production regulation mechanism from the other NKR-5-3 enterocins. The developed system could effectively pin-point the production profiles of the multiple bacteriocins of E.?faecium NKR-5-3 under different fermentation conditions.     

Singly-fed patch antenna radiating a circularly polarised conical beam

A singly-fed circular patch antenna generates a circularly polarised conical beam with the help of two perturbation elements. The location of the feed point relative to the perturbation elements determines the rotational sense of the circularly polarised wave. Theoretical and experimental results for the radiation pattern and return loss are presented.<>