Effect of acidic conditions on fatty acid composition and membrane fluidity of Escherichia coli strains isolated from Crescenza cheese

The effect of low pH on minimum pH, growth kinetics and adaptive response to acidity conditions were studied on nine Escherichia coli strains having food origin and two collection strains. Moreover, the effects of low pH on the modification of fatty acid (FA) composition and membrane fluidity of the strains were studied. Also the effects of a pre-adaptation to pH 5 on acidic resistance and FA composition were considered. The results showed the crucial role of unsaturated FA in acid adaptation of E. coli. Cyclization and isomerization of membrane FA represented the most interesting response to acidic growth conditions in the E. coli strains considered. In particular cis/trans isomerization was shown to play an important role in modulating membrane composition and fluidity under acidic conditions. Only one strain was able to adapt to acidic stress increasing its ability to grow at low pH. It responded to pH decrease, conversely to each other strain, by increasing its membrane fluidity at the lowest pH values considered. The results obtained showed that the determination of membrane fluidity in intact whole cells by fluorescence polarisation can represent a useful tool to study instantaneous stress-induced membrane fluidity modifications.