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Bacterial virulence

Modifying virulent behaviour

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 8, pages 312–313 (2010)Cite this article

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The cell surface features of C. jejuni are subjected to a range of post-translational modifications. One previously characterized surface modification of Gram-negative bacteria involves the remodelling of the lipid A component of lipo-oligosaccharide, resulting in protection against cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). However, lipid A modifications had not been characterized in C. jejuni. To address this, Cullen and Trent carried out a bioinformatic search of the C. jejuni genome using as a comparison a previously characterized lipid A phosphoethanolamine transferase from Helicobacter pylori that is necessary for AMP resistance, and they identified the cj0256 gene as a putative homologue. The authors expressed Cj0256 in Escherichia coli str. K12 substr. W3110 and then radiolabelled cells with inorganic [32P]phosphate. Thin-layer chromatography of lipid A species purified from this strain revealed that expression of Cj0256 resulted in modification of lipid A with phosphoethanolamine. Deletion of cj0256 in C. jejuni caused a block in this modification of lipid A, which led to a striking decrease in resistance to the AMP polymyxin B. Lipid A modification and AMP resistance could be restored by complementing the deletion strain with either cj0256 or eptA, the gene encoding the E. coli phosphoethanolamine transferase.

two key mechanisms that are important for C. jejuni virulence are jointly regulated

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Change history

  • 16 April 2010

    In the version of this highlight originally published, in para 2, line 11 the word 'phospate' should have been 'phosphate'. This has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Cullen, T. W. & Trent, M. S. A link between the assembly of flagella and lipooligosaccharide of the Gram-negative bacterium Campylobacter jejuni. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 1 Mar 2010 (doi:10.1073/pnas.0913451107)

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  1. Andrew Jermy
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Jermy, A. Modifying virulent behaviour. Nat Rev Microbiol 8, 312–313 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2353

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