Nomeda Kuisiene

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Vilnius University

Obligately thermophilic, aerobic, proteolytic, endospore-forming strain N-3(T) was isolated from a high-temperature oilfield in Lithuania. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis placed this strain in genetic group 5 of the endospore formers. Geobacillus thermoleovorans appeared to be the closest phylogenetic neighbour (99.4 % sequence similarity). The G+C...

The aim of this study was to develop an easy and accurate technique for the identification of the genus Geobacillus. For this purpose, Geobacillus genus-specific primers GEOBAC (GEOBAC-F and GEOBAC-R) based on the 16S-23S rRNA gene internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region sequences have been designed. In total, 52 sequences from three species of th...

Collagens and collagen-like proteins are found in a wide range of organisms. The common feature of these proteins is a triple helix fold, requiring a characteristic pattern of amino acid sequences, composed of Gly-X-Y tripeptide repeats. Collagen-like proteins from bacteria are heterogeneous in terms of length and amino acid composition of their co...

Caves are considered to be extreme and challenging environments. It is believed that the ability of microorganisms to produce secondary metabolites enhances their survivability and adaptiveness in the energy-starved cave environment. Unfortunately, information on the genetic potential for the production of secondary metabolites, such as polyketides...

The genome sequencing and mining of microorganisms from unexplored and extreme environments has become important in the process of identifying novel biosynthetic pathways. In the present study, the biosynthetic potential of Paenibacillus sp. strains 23TSA30-6 and 28ISP30-2 was investigated. Both strains were isolated from the deep oligotrophic Krub...

Listeria monocytogenes is a saprophytic gram positive bacterium and opportunistic foodborne pathogen that can cause listeriosis in humans. The incidence of listeriosis has been rising globally and, despite antimicrobial treatment, the mortality rates associated with the most severe forms of listeriosis such as sepsis, meningitis, and meningoencepha...

Introduction Neisseria meningitidis is a gram-negative bacterium responsible for life-threatening invasive infections known as invasive meningococcal disease and is associated with high fatality rates and serious lifelong disabilities among survivors. Methods This study aimed to characterize N. meningitidis isolates cultured from blood and cerebro...

A high temperature-adapted bacteriophage, vB_PtoS_NIIg3.2 (NIIg3.2), was isolated in Lithuania from compost heaps using Parageobacillus toebii strain NIIg-3 as a host for phage propagation. Furthermore, NIIg3.2 was active against four strains of Geobacillus thermodenitrificans, and it infected the host cells from 50 to 80 °C. Transmission electron...

We report a detailed characterization of five thermophilic bacteriophages (phages) that were isolated from compost heaps in Vilnius, Lithuania using Geobacillus thermodenitrificans strains as the hosts for phage propagation. The efficiency of plating experiments revealed that phages formed plaques from 45 to 80 °C. Furthermore, most of the phages f...

Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) isolates are a main cause of bloodstream infections. The aim of this study was to characterize 256 β-lactam–resistant, bacteremia-causing E. coli isolates collected from 12 healthcare institutions in Lithuania in 2014 and 2018. All isolates were identified as E. coli via MALDI-TOF MS and VITEK ®2....

D‐Tagatose is a rare natural sugar, which is promising alternative for popular dietary sweeteners. To optimize and make D‐tagatose production more cost‐effective, a portable (bio)sensor would be beneficial for D‐tagatose quantification in bioreactor media during D‐tagatose (bio)synthesis. In this study, a pilot study of D‐tagatose quantification by...

Bacterial resistance to antimicrobial agents plays an important role in the treatment of bacterial infections in healthcare institutions. The spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria can occur during inter- and intra-hospital transmissions among patients and hospital personnel. For this reason, more studies must be conducted to understand how resista...

Clostridioides difficile has become the leading nosocomial Gram-positive pathogen in the developed countries. In Lithuania, the national surveillance program for C. difficile started in 2017. Enzyme immunoassay, the real-time PCR system, and culture are used for laboratory confirmation of C. difficile infection in Lithuanian clinical laboratories....

Identification of novel bioactive compounds represents an important field in modern biomedical research. Microorganisms of the underexplored environments, such as deserts, hot springs, oceans, and caves are highly promising candidates for screening such metabolites. Screening for biosynthetic genes is the most effective strategy to characterize bio...

Spread of multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria became one of the greatest threats in healthcare worldwide. It is generally accepted that both inter- and intrahospital transmissions of these bacteria contribute significantly to this problem. The purpose of the current study was the evaluation of the inter- and intrahospital spread of multidrug re...

This review highlights cave habitats, cave microbiomes and their potential for drug discovery. Such studies face many challenges, including access to remote and pristine caves, and sample collection and transport. Inappropriate physical and chemical growth conditions in the laboratory for the isolation and cultivation of cave microorganisms pose ma...

Geobacillus thermodenitrificans DSM 101594 was isolated as a producer of extracellular thermostable pectic polysaccharide degrading enzymes. The completely sequenced genome was 3.6Mb in length with GC content of 48.86%. A number of genes encoding enzymatic active against the high molecular weight polysaccharides of potential biotechnological import...

In the present study we aimed to perform the first analysis of antimicrobial activity of bacteria isolated from Krubera-Voronja Cave, with the main focus on their activity against Grampositive bacteria, including Gram-positive pathogens. Using five different media, in total 874 heterotrophic cultures were isolated from water and sediment samples co...

There is a growing interest in supporting human health by using prebiotics, such as oligosaccharides, and beneficial bacteria, also called probiotics. Combining these two components we can develop synbiotics. In order to create successful combination of synbiotic it is very important to evaluate the influence of prebiotic oligosaccharides to probio...

Ability of bacteriocins to inhibit pathogenic bacteria may depend on the environment inhabited by the producing strain. However, there are just few reports on bacteriocin-producing thermophilic bacteria from unconventional environments. Therefore, in this work we investigated differences in antibacterial activity spectra of microorganisms isolated...

In our work, microbial diversity of Krubera-Voronja cave was evaluated in the view of the frequency of human visits in different locations as well as the sampling depth. Sampling in this cave was performed at depths of 220 m to 1640 m. Cultivation-independent method, namely barcoded pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene, was used for this analysis. Our r...

A new gene (GT-SM3B) encoding thermostable secreted oligoendopeptidase (GT-SM3B) was cloned from thermophile Geobacillus thermoleovorans DSM 15325. GT-SM3B is 1857 bp in length and encodes a single-domain protein of 618 amino acids with a 23-residue signal peptide having a calculated mass of 67.7 kDa after signal cleavage. The deduced amino acid se...

Agro-industrial wastes are potential starting materials for the production of useful value-added compounds, including prebiotic oligosaccharides. In this paper, we evaluated the potential of thermophilic bacterial pectin- and xylandegrading recombinant enzymes for the degradation of the agro-industrial wastes: apple pomace, wheat straw, wheat bran...

Success in creating a synbiotic depends on compatibility between the chosen components--prebiotic and probiotic. In this work the interactions between Lactobacillus sp. strains isolated from yogurts and type strains of Lactobacillus sp. and Lactococcus sp., and the dependence of their growth and antibacterial activity on three oligosaccharides (OS)...

In this paper we report identification, cloning and characterization of a novel thermostable pullulanase type I. Pullulanase AmyA1 was detected in a sample of extracellular proteins of thermophilic enrichment culture, growing on starch. The zone of enzymatic activity in zymogram was aligned with the corresponding band on the equivalent gel without...

Plant biomass in the form of cheap wastes, such as straw, corn stalks, wood chips, sawdust, bagasse, pomace, etc., is abundant throughout the world. To convert these wastes into the useful value-added compounds microbial enzymes are the preferred choice. In this paper, we identify enzymes involved in the degradation of starch and polygalacturonic a...

The spatial distribution and composition of anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria in the enriched bacterial communities from different depths of karst lakes Kirkilai and Ramunelis was studied using spectrophotometric analysis, as well as microbiological and molecular methods. In Lake Kirkilai, the highest bacterial abundance was measured in the metalimn...

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

Taxonomy of thermophilic, endospore-forming bacteria has evoked a great interest over the past few years. Although a number of taxonomic markers were previously evaluated, their sequences in Geobacillus were too conservative, and identification of more variable markers is needed. Repetitive DNA is one of the promising variable targets in the develo...

While small organic molecules generally crystallize forming tightly packed lattices with little solvent content, proteins form air-sensitive high-solvent-content crystals. Here, the crystallization and full structure analysis of a novel recombinant 10 kDa protein corresponding to the C-terminal domain of a putative U32 peptidase are reported. The o...

Thermophilic strain JK1 was isolated from compost using xylan as a single carbon source. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene phylogenetic analysis and spo0A gene sequence similarity analysis, strain JK1 was identified as Geobacillus thermodenitrificans strain. During the exponential culture growth, the strain JK1 was found to produce the single xylan deg...

Peptidase family U32 is one of those few whose catalytic type and structure has not yet been described. It is generally accepted that U32 peptidases represent putative collagenases and contribute to the pathogenicity of some bacteria. Meanwhile, U32 peptidases are also found in nonpathogenic bacteria including thermophiles and hyperthermophiles. He...

Gene expression and activity analysis of the first thermophilic U32 peptidase Abbreviations IPTG ‑ isopropyl‑β‑D‑thiogalactopyranoside; ACN ‑ acetonitrile.

Peptidase family U32 is one of those few whose catalytic type and structure has not yet been described. It is generally accepted that U32 peptidases represent putative collagenases and contribute to the pathogenicity of some bacteria. Meanwhile, U32 peptidases are also found in nonpathogenic bacteria including thermophiles and hyperthermophiles. He...

Four novel heat-stable bacteriocin-like substances were found to be produced by Geobacillus stearothermophilus strains isolated from oil-wells in Lithuania. Geobacillus stearothermophilus 32A, 17, 30 and 31 strains were identified as producers of bacteriocins with bactericidal activity against closely related Geobacillus species and several pathoge...

In this work, the variability of spo0A gene in the genus Geobacillus and applicability of this gene for the taxonomy within this genus were evaluated. The protein Spo0A is the master regulator of the endospore-forming process in the all endospore-forming bacteria. Geobacillus genus-specific primers GEOSPO were designed based on the sequences of Geo...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the inter-and intraspecific as well as intragenomic variability of Geobacillus 16S–23S rRNA internal transcribed spacers without tRNA genes and to compare these sequences with sequences bearing tRNA genes. In this study the structural analysis was performed in a unique way because the length and the sequence of...

The complete nucleotide sequence (62.8 kb) of pGS18, the largest sequenced plasmid to date from the species Geobacillus stearothermophilus, was determined. Computational analysis of sequence data revealed 65 putative open reading frames (ORFs); 38 were carried on one strand and 27 were carried on the other. These ORFs comprised 84.1% of the pGS18 s...

Four bacterial strains, designated K9(T), K105, K1012A and K101, were isolated from soil in Lithuania. All these strains could use n-butanol as a sole carbon source. The strains grew in a medium containing 12-120 mM n-butanol. The strains were strictly aerobic, Gram-positive endospore-formers. The best growth was achieved at 25 degrees C and pH 7.0...

Two chitinolytic bacterial strains (designated MK2T and V7) were isolated from the myco- rhizosphere of the fungus Tylopilus felleus. The strains were facultatively anaerobic G+ endospore formers. Physiological analysis and 16S rRNA gene PCR-RFLP assays revealed nearly identical profiles for both strains, demonstrating their relationship at the spe...

Four primers targeting the self-sufficient cytochrome P450 monooxygenase gene in the Bacillus cereus group were designed in this study. PCR was carried out using these primers, and Bacillus thuringiensis wild type strains C32 and 1.2 as well as the reference strain HER1410 were proven to possess this gene. Our results also showed that B. thuringien...

The aim of the present study was to analyse sequences of 16S-23S internal transcribed spacer regions of different Geobacillus species, identify structural elements of these regions and evaluate the possibility to use these structural elements in the taxonomy of the genus Geobacillus. GEOBAC-PCR was used in order to obtain 16S-23S rRNA internal tran...

We present an easy, fast and accurate method for the identification of Geobacillus stearother-mophilus – the type species of the genus Geobacillus. We used 16S rRNA gene restriction analysis with AluI and demonstrated a discriminate restriction profile of this species. The presence of a fragment 162 bp in size and the absence of the 76 bp and 86 bp...

We repor the first data demonstrating the presence of putative conjugative transfer genes on plasmids of the speciesGeobacillus stearothermophilus. Partial sequence analysis of the plasmid pGS18 fromG. stearothermophilus 18 was determined. It contained eleven complete open reading frames. Five of them encoded proteins which are homologous toBacillu...