Glycine supplementation reshapes metabolism and enhances growth and stress tolerance in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum.

Authors

Hyeon-Ji Han, Si-Heon Song, Md Sekendar Ali, Hyeon-Ju Lee, Byeong-Su Kang, Do-Hyung Kim, Eon-Bee Lee

Published in

Food microbiology. Volume 142. Pages 105298. Epub Sep 02, 2026.

Abstract

Glycine plays a pivotal role in microbial metabolism, yet its function in Lactiplantibacillus plantarum remains incompletely understood. This study investigates the metabolic and physiological impact of glycine supplementation using an integrated computational and experimental approach. In silico KEGG pathway mapping based on the L. plantarum reference genome annotation (lpl, T00115) indicated incomplete representation of the glycine cleavage system (M00621) and betaine degradation pathway (M00975), suggesting possible pathway-level limitations in glycine catabolism and C1-unit generation. Molecular docking indicated that glycine could be accommodated within the binding pockets of selected enzymes associated with glycine-related and folate-dependent pathways. STRING network analysis further suggested possible connections between these proteins and threonine, methionine, and lysine biosynthetic networks. In vitro assays showed that 10 mM glycine produced the highest visible biomass accumulation, with higher glycine concentrations increased biomass accumulation based on OD₆₀₀ values. Interestingly, glycine exposure also modified colony morphology and shifted antibiotic susceptibility profiles, particularly to β-lactams. Moreover, glycine supplementation improved bacterial survival under bile salt and osmotic stress conditions. These findings suggest that exogenous glycine may contribute to biomass-associated responses and stress-related phenotypes in L. plantarum under the tested conditions. Furthermore, phenotypic and reference genome-informed evidence shows that glycine availability is associated with growth- and stress-related responses in L. plantarum KCCM 11322, providing a basis for further mechanistic validation of amino acid supplementation in food microbiology-related applications.

PMID:
42901651
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 21 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.