The dual transcriptional regulator CysR in Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 controls a subset of genes of the McbR regulon in response to the availability of sulphide acceptor molecules

Background: Regulation of sulphur metabolism in Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 has been studied intensively in the last few years, due to its industrial as well as scientific importance. Previously, the gene cg0156 was shown to belong to the regulon of McbR, a global transcriptional repressor of sulphur metabolism in C. glutamicum. This gene encodes a putative ROK-type regulator, a paralogue of the activator of sulphonate utilisation, SsuR. Therefore, it is an interesting candidate for study to further the understanding of the regulation of sulphur metabolism in C. glutamicum. Results: Deletion of cg0156, now designated cysR, results in the inability of the mutant to utilise sulphate and aliphatic sulphonates. DNA microarray hybridisations revealed 49 genes with significantly increased and 48 with decreased transcript levels in presence of the native CysR compared to a cysR deletion mutant. Among the genes positively controlled by CysR were the gene cluster involved in sulphate reduction, fpr2 cysIXHDNYZ, and ssuR. Gel retardation experiments demonstrated that binding of CysR to DNA depends in vitro on the presence of either O-acetyl-L-serine or O-acetyl-L-homoserine. Mapping of the transcription start points of five transcription units helped to identify a 10 bp inverted repeat as the possible CysR binding site. Subsequent in vivo tests proved this motif to be necessary for CysR-dependent transcriptional regulation. Conclusion: CysR acts as the functional analogue of the unrelated LysR-type regulator CysB from Escherichia coli, controlling sulphide production in response to acceptor availability. In both bacteria, gene duplication events seem to have taken place which resulted in the evolution of dedicated regulators for the control of sulphonate utilisation. The striking convergent evolution of network topology indicates the strong selective pressure to control the metabolism of the essential but often toxic sulphur-containing (bio-)molecules

Complete Genome Sequence of the Type Strain Corynebacterium mustelae DSM 45274, Isolated from Various Tissues of a Male Ferret with Lethal Sepsis

Rückert C, Eimer J, Winkler A, Tauch A. Complete Genome Sequence of the Type Strain Corynebacterium mustelae DSM 45274, Isolated from Various Tissues of a Male Ferret with Lethal Sepsis. Genome announcements. 2015;3(5): e01012-15.The complete genome of Corynebacterium mustelae DSM 45274 comprises 3,474,226 bp and 3,188 genes. Prominent niche and virulence factors are SpaBCA- and SpaDEF-type pili with similarity to pilus proteins of Corynebacterium resistens and Corynebacterium urealyticum and an immunomodulatory EndoS-like endoglycosidase probably catalyzing the removal of distinct glycans from IgG antibodies

Complete Genome Sequence of the Type Strain Corynebacterium epidermidicanis DSM 45586, Isolated from the Skin of a Dog Suffering from Pruritus

Rückert C, Eimer J, Winkler A, Tauch A. Complete Genome Sequence of the Type Strain Corynebacterium epidermidicanis DSM 45586, Isolated from the Skin of a Dog Suffering from Pruritus. Genome announcements. 2015;3(4): e00959-15.The complete genome sequence of Corynebacterium epidermidicanis DSM 45586 comprises 2,692,072 bp with 58.06% G+C content. The annotation revealed 2,466 protein-coding regions, including genes for surface-anchored proteins with Cna B-type or bacterial Ig-like domains and for an adhesive SpaABC-type pilus with similarity to fimbrial subunits of Corynebacterium resistens DSM 45100

Complete Genome Sequence of Corynebacterium camporealensis DSM 44610, Isolated from the Milk of a Manchega Sheep with Subclinical Mastitis

Rückert C, Albersmeier A, Winkler A, Tauch A. Complete Genome Sequence of Corynebacterium camporealensis DSM 44610, Isolated from the Milk of a Manchega Sheep with Subclinical Mastitis. Genome announcements. 2015;3(3): e00572-15.Corynebacterium camporealensis has been isolated in pure culture from milk samples of dairy sheep affected by subclinical mastitis. The complete genome sequence of the type strain DSM 44610, recovered from milk of a Manchega sheep, comprises 2,451,810 bp with a mean G+C content of 59.41% and 2,249 protein-coding genes

Benchmarking of Neuromorphic Hardware Systems

Ostrau C, Klarhorst C, Thies M, Rückert U. Benchmarking of Neuromorphic Hardware Systems. In: Neuro-inspired Computational Elements Workshop (NICE ’20), March 17–20, 2020, Heidelberg, Germany. International Conference Proceeding Series (ICPS). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM); 2020.With more and more neuromorphic hardware systems for the accel- eration of spiking neural networks available in science and industry, there is a demand for platform comparison and performance esti- mation of such systems. This work describes selected benchmarks implemented in a framework with exactly this target: independent black-box benchmarking and comparison of platforms suitable for the simulation/emulation of spiking neural networks

Comparing Neuromorphic Systems by Solving Sudoku Problems

Ostrau C, Klarhorst C, Thies M, Rückert U. Comparing Neuromorphic Systems by Solving Sudoku Problems. In: Conference Proceedings: 2019 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; Accepted.In the field of neuromorphic computing several hardware accelerators for spiking neural networks have been introduced, but few studies actually compare different systems. These comparative studies reveal difficulties in porting an existing network to a specific system and in predicting its performance indicators. Finding a common network architecture that is suited for all target platforms and at the same time yields decent results is a major challenge. In this contribution, we show that a winner-takes-all inspired network structure can be employed to solve Sudoku puzzles on three diverse hardware accelerators. By exploring several network implementations, we measured the number of solved puzzles in a set of 100 assorted Sudokus, as well as time and energy to solution. Concerning the last two indicators, our measurements indicate that it can be beneficial to port a network to an analogue hardware system