Regulating expression of virulence determinants in enterotoxigenic escherichia coli H10407

[摘要] Enterotoxigenic \(Escherichia\) \(coli\) (ETEC) is a major cause of traveller’s and infantile diarrhoea in developing countries, and results in considerable mortality in under 5 year olds. Disease is mediated through adhesion of ETEC cells to the intestinal brush border and the secretion of the heat-stable and/or heat-labile toxin. Whilst the toxins have been well studied it is still not clear how their expression is regulated. This work has defined binding of CRP, H-NS and σ\(^7\)\(^0\) across the genome of the prototypical ETEC strain H10407. We demonstrate a central role for all three factors in regulating pathogenicity in ETEC H10407. Hence, we show that CRP directly regulates expression of both \(estA2\) and \(estA1\), which encode the heat-stable toxins. Furthermore, CRP indirectly represses expression of the heat-labile toxin. This work also identifies a role for CRP in controlling transcription of a small open reading frame, imbedded within a gene, at the 3’ end of an operon encoding a type I secretion system.

[发布机构] University:University of Birmingham;Department:School of Biosciences

[关键词] Q Science;QR Microbiology;QR355 Virology