Project description:Background: Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute aerobic growth requirement for heme and has developed multiple complex mechanisms to obtain this essential nutrient. Although an understanding of the heme acquisition mechanisms of H. influenzae is emerging, significant gaps remain to be elucidated. In a previous study we utilized H. influenzae strain Rd KW20 to demonstrate the utility of transcriptional profiling in defining the genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to environmental iron and heme levels. The current study expands upon those initial observations by determining the iron/heme regulons of two additional H. influenzae clinical isolates, i.e. the type b isolate 10810 and the nontypeable isolate R2866, to characterize the core iron/heme regulon of the species. Results: A microarray chip was designed to incorporate probes for all of the genes of H. influenzae isolates 10810 and R2866, and microarray studies were performed to compare gene expression under iron/heme-replete and iron/heme-restricted conditions for each isolate. Of 1820 ORFs on the array corresponding to R2866 genes, 363 were significantly differentially expressed. Of these 363 genes, 233 were maximally transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 130 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Of the 1883 ORFs representing genes of strain10810, 351 were significantly differentially transcribed, 150 of these were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-replete conditions and 201 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Comparison of the data sets indicated that 163 genes were similarly regulated in both isolates and that 74 of these also exhibited similar patterns of regulation in strain Rd KW20. Conclusion: This study provides evidence for a core of H. influenzae genes that are regulated by the availability of iron and/or heme in the growth environment. Elucidation of this core regulon provides targets for investigation of genes with an unrecognized role in iron and heme homeostasis, as well as other potential virulence determinants. In addition, the set of core genes potentially provides targets for therapeutic and vaccine designs since these products of these genes are likely to be preferentially expressed during growth in iron/heme restricted sites of the human body. This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
Project description:Background: Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute aerobic growth requirement for heme and has developed multiple complex mechanisms to obtain this essential nutrient. Although an understanding of the heme acquisition mechanisms of H. influenzae is emerging, significant gaps remain to be elucidated. In a previous study we utilized H. influenzae strain Rd KW20 to demonstrate the utility of transcriptional profiling in defining the genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to environmental iron and heme levels. The current study expands upon those initial observations by determining the iron/heme regulons of two additional H. influenzae clinical isolates, i.e. the type b isolate 10810 and the nontypeable isolate R2866, to characterize the core iron/heme regulon of the species. Results: A microarray chip was designed to incorporate probes for all of the genes of H. influenzae isolates 10810 and R2866, and microarray studies were performed to compare gene expression under iron/heme-replete and iron/heme-restricted conditions for each isolate. Of 1820 ORFs on the array corresponding to R2866 genes, 363 were significantly differentially expressed. Of these 363 genes, 233 were maximally transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 130 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Of the 1883 ORFs representing genes of strain10810, 351 were significantly differentially transcribed, 150 of these were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-replete conditions and 201 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Comparison of the data sets indicated that 163 genes were similarly regulated in both isolates and that 74 of these also exhibited similar patterns of regulation in strain Rd KW20. Conclusion: This study provides evidence for a core of H. influenzae genes that are regulated by the availability of iron and/or heme in the growth environment. Elucidation of this core regulon provides targets for investigation of genes with an unrecognized role in iron and heme homeostasis, as well as other potential virulence determinants. In addition, the set of core genes potentially provides targets for therapeutic and vaccine designs since these products of these genes are likely to be preferentially expressed during growth in iron/heme restricted sites of the human body. Keywords: Transcription analyses
Project description:Background: Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute aerobic growth requirement for heme and has developed multiple complex mechanisms to obtain this essential nutrient. Although an understanding of the heme acquisition mechanisms of H. influenzae is emerging, significant gaps remain to be elucidated. In a previous study we utilized H. influenzae strain Rd KW20 to demonstrate the utility of transcriptional profiling in defining the genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to environmental iron and heme levels. The current study expands upon those initial observations by determining the iron/heme regulons of two additional H. influenzae clinical isolates, i.e. the type b isolate 10810 and the nontypeable isolate R2866, to characterize the core iron/heme regulon of the species. Results: A microarray chip was designed to incorporate probes for all of the genes of H. influenzae isolates 10810 and R2866, and microarray studies were performed to compare gene expression under iron/heme-replete and iron/heme-restricted conditions for each isolate. Of 1820 ORFs on the array corresponding to R2866 genes, 363 were significantly differentially expressed. Of these 363 genes, 233 were maximally transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 130 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Of the 1883 ORFs representing genes of strain10810, 351 were significantly differentially transcribed, 150 of these were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-replete conditions and 201 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Comparison of the data sets indicated that 163 genes were similarly regulated in both isolates and that 74 of these also exhibited similar patterns of regulation in strain Rd KW20. Conclusion: This study provides evidence for a core of H. influenzae genes that are regulated by the availability of iron and/or heme in the growth environment. Elucidation of this core regulon provides targets for investigation of genes with an unrecognized role in iron and heme homeostasis, as well as other potential virulence determinants. In addition, the set of core genes potentially provides targets for therapeutic and vaccine designs since these products of these genes are likely to be preferentially expressed during growth in iron/heme restricted sites of the human body. Keywords: Transcription analyses
Project description:Background: Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute aerobic growth requirement for heme and has developed multiple complex mechanisms to obtain this essential nutrient. Although an understanding of the heme acquisition mechanisms of H. influenzae is emerging, significant gaps remain to be elucidated. In a previous study we utilized H. influenzae strain Rd KW20 to demonstrate the utility of transcriptional profiling in defining the genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to environmental iron and heme levels. The current study expands upon those initial observations by determining the iron/heme regulons of two additional H. influenzae clinical isolates, i.e. the type b isolate 10810 and the nontypeable isolate R2866, to characterize the core iron/heme regulon of the species. Results: A microarray chip was designed to incorporate probes for all of the genes of H. influenzae isolates 10810 and R2866, and microarray studies were performed to compare gene expression under iron/heme-replete and iron/heme-restricted conditions for each isolate. Of 1820 ORFs on the array corresponding to R2866 genes, 363 were significantly differentially expressed. Of these 363 genes, 233 were maximally transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 130 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Of the 1883 ORFs representing genes of strain10810, 351 were significantly differentially transcribed, 150 of these were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-replete conditions and 201 were preferentially transcribed in iron/heme-restricted conditions. Comparison of the data sets indicated that 163 genes were similarly regulated in both isolates and that 74 of these also exhibited similar patterns of regulation in strain Rd KW20. Conclusion: This study provides evidence for a core of H. influenzae genes that are regulated by the availability of iron and/or heme in the growth environment. Elucidation of this core regulon provides targets for investigation of genes with an unrecognized role in iron and heme homeostasis, as well as other potential virulence determinants. In addition, the set of core genes potentially provides targets for therapeutic and vaccine designs since these products of these genes are likely to be preferentially expressed during growth in iron/heme restricted sites of the human body. This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE11349: Transcriptional profiling of FeHm effects on Haemophilus influenzae R2866 GSE11354: Transcriptional profiling of FeHm effects on Haemophilus influenzae 10810 Keywords: SuperSeries Refer to individual Series
Project description:Haemophilus influenzae(Hi) is a gram-negative rod shaped bacterium that lives symbiotically in the upper respiratory tract of humans. Capsulated Hi, as well as non-capsulated strains are known to cause a number of significant infections. Recognizing and understanding the links between the phenotypic traits and the genetic background has paramount epidemiological and clinical importance. To date, a panoply of microbiological and molecular biology tools have been developed and utilized by researchers aimed at identifying the evolutionary links among strains and isolates. Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) has been shown to be a useful tool for screening strains for their genetic content. However, there is a major limitation when CGH is conducted on a microarray based on a single reference genome. CGH results report which genes are present or absent relative to the genome. Hence the information about novel genetic content that the query strain possesses remains obscure. We report here the construction of the first Hi pan-genome microarray representing ca. 4600 features by 70-mers. In addition to those from the Rd strain, new features originate from the unfinished genome sequences present in NCBI database and from our novel gene discovery project efforts using strain HK1212. Genomes of 20strains belonging to different phylogenetic lineages were screened for their gene loss and gain utilizing the species microarray. The results obtained by employing the multistrain species microarray provide comprehensive information about the genomic content of uncharacterized strains. The trees generated by CGH, in general, do not reproduce the phylogeny of a species in terms of vertical evolution, but instead represents the overall relatedness of genomes to one another and provide an assessment about the species genome evolution. Keywords: Comparative Genomic Hybridization
Project description:H. influenzae R2866 contains a phase-variable DNA methylase modA10, by virtue of 16 tetrameric repeats present after the start codon. Gain or loss of repeats during replication by slipped-strand mispairing can result in a non-functional reading frame. Microarray analyses of wild-type and insertionally inactivated modA were performed to determine genes affected by phase variable modification.