Project description:Food-borne illness arising for Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli is often linked to consumption of fruit and vegetables as the bacteria have the ability to interact with plants and use them as alternative or secondary hosts. Attachment of the bacteria to host tissue is one of the first steps in the interaction, and, as with mammalian hosts, has shown to be mediated by a combination of non-specific and specific adhesin-mediated interactions. We took a high-throughput positive-selection approach to investigate adherence mechanisms for E. coli O157:H7 isolate Sakai by inoculating a BAC clone library onto spinach, which was quantified by microarray hybridisation and gene loci enrichment measured using a Bayesian hierarchical model. The screen involved four successive rounds of adherence to spinach roots, resulting in 115 CDS credible candidates, covered by seven contiguous genomic regions. Two candidates regions selected for functional assessment included a chaperone-usher fimbrial gene cluster (loc6) and the type two secretion system (T2SS). The TS22 was found to significantly enhance binding to spinach roots and leaves, demonstrated with a BAC-T2SS clone and by mutagenesis of the secretin protein, EtpD. Both etpD and the inner membrane anchor protein gene etpC were expressed at 18 degree celsius, and expression of etpD was demonstrated for STEC (Sakai) resident in the apoplastic spaces in spinach leaf tissue. Together, these data indicate a novel function for STEC T2SS in adherence to plant tissue. Experiment 1: screening E coli O157:H7 Sakai genes for adherence to spinach roots. A BAC library of Sakai clones in an E coli DH10B background (which has poor root adherence) defined as the 'Input pool', was incubated with spinach roots for 4 rounds of enrichment, defined as the 'Output pool'. Control samples (defined as 'Input control' & 'Output control') were cultures of pV41 vector only. DNA extractions from test pools were labelled with Cy3 throughout. DH10B DNA was used for grid alignment and labelled with Cy5 throughout.

Project description:Escherichia coli O157 presents a number of specific problems in terms of food safety and public health. It has been found that E. coli O157 is more resistant to a number of the stresses encountered during food production such as heat, pH and osmotic shock. This greater resistance is thought to contribute to the low infectious dose of E. coli O157 (<100 organisms). Moreover, E. coli O157 is associated with debilitating conditions such as haemorrhagic colitis and haemoytic uraemic syndrome, particularly in children and the elderly. We have been studying the stress responses of E. coli O157:H7 (Sakai) and comparing with a commensal strain of E. coli K-12, MG1655. We found that E. coli O157 (Sakai) is more sensitive to oxidative stress than MG1655. A microarray study of these strains treated with sub-lethal concentrations (0.5mg/ml) of menadione revealed big differences in their responses. In E. coli O157 (Sakai), 540 genes responded significantly to the treatment compared to 121 genes in MG1655. One surprising finding from the microarray data was the observation that many iron-transport genes were up-regulated in E. coli O157 (Sakai) whereas relatively few were induced in MG1655 despite the fact that the bacteria were grown in a medium containing ample iron. We speculated that the induction of iron transport genes in an iron-rich medium might have contributed to the enhanced killing of E. coli O157 (Sakai) through triggering of a Fenton reaction. We speculated that the difference in sensitivity to oxidative stress might be due to differences in the intracellular iron content of E. coli O157 and MG1655. We found that E. coli O157 contains ~50% more iron than MG1655 and believe that during oxidative stress, this iron is released by damaged proteins. The greater levels of free iron in E. coli O157 will trigger a greater Fenton reaction that can damage the ferric uptake regulator (Fur), resulting in unregulated iron transport. In MG1655, the lower iron content results in a smaller Fenton reaction, enabling the cellular protection systems to limit damage and protect Fur.

Project description:Escherichia coli O157 presents a number of specific problems in terms of food safety and public health. It has been found that E. coli O157 is more resistant to a number of the stresses encountered during food production such as heat, pH and osmotic shock. This greater resistance is thought to contribute to the low infectious dose of E. coli O157 (<100 organisms). Moreover, E. coli O157 is associated with debilitating conditions such as haemorrhagic colitis and haemoytic uraemic syndrome, particularly in children and the elderly. We have been studying the stress responses of E. coli O157:H7 (Sakai) and comparing with a commensal strain of E. coli K-12, MG1655. We found that E. coli O157 (Sakai) is more sensitive to oxidative stress than MG1655. A microarray study of these strains treated with sub-lethal concentrations (0.5mg/ml) of menadione revealed big differences in their responses. In E. coli O157 (Sakai), 540 genes responded significantly to the treatment compared to 121 genes in MG1655. One surprising finding from the microarray data was the observation that many iron-transport genes were up-regulated in E. coli O157 (Sakai) whereas relatively few were induced in MG1655 despite the fact that the bacteria were grown in a medium containing ample iron. We speculated that the induction of iron transport genes in an iron-rich medium might have contributed to the enhanced killing of E. coli O157 (Sakai) through triggering of a Fenton reaction. We speculated that the difference in sensitivity to oxidative stress might be due to differences in the intracellular iron content of E. coli O157 and MG1655. We found that E. coli O157 contains ~50% more iron than MG1655 and believe that during oxidative stress, this iron is released by damaged proteins. The greater levels of free iron in E. coli O157 will trigger a greater Fenton reaction that can damage the ferric uptake regulator (Fur), resulting in unregulated iron transport. In MG1655, the lower iron content results in a smaller Fenton reaction, enabling the cellular protection systems to limit damage and protect Fur. Overnight cultures of E. coli O157 (Sakai) and E. coli K-12 MG1655 were grown in Neidhardt's EZ Rich Defined Medium and diluted 1:100 in 50 ml fresh medium in 125 ml Ehrlenmeyer flasks. The cultures were shaken at 37C until the optical density (OD600) reached 0.4. Each culture was divided into 2 equal parts in identical flasks. One flask contained menadione bisulphite to a final concentration of 0.5 mg/ml; the other flask contained an equivalent volume of distilled water. The flasks were shaken for a further 10 mins and then treated with RNAprotect™ to stabilise the mRNA. The experiment was performed 3 times on different days. Six custom-made microarray slides were used in this study; each slide was hybridised with labelled cDNA made from mRNA taken from untreated and treated E. coli O157 (Sakai) or MG1655.

			Action	DRS
	SRR8867850_1.fastq.gz	Fastqsanger.gz
	SRR8867850_2.fastq.gz	Fastqsanger.gz
	SRR8867860_1.fastq.gz	Fastqsanger.gz
	SRR8867860_2.fastq.gz	Fastqsanger.gz
	SRR8867870_1.fastq.gz	Fastqsanger.gz

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Escherichia coli O157 isolate:Sakai

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