BioProject

Iron is an essential micronutrient for all living organisms, and sequestering of iron and the virulence of pathogenic bacteria are believed to be correlated. More...

Iron is an essential micronutrient for all living organisms, and sequestering of iron and the virulence of pathogenic bacteria are believed to be correlated. As the defense mechanisms, potential hosts therefore keep the level of free iron inside the body to a minimum. The iron metabolism is well studied in general for several pathogens of humans and animals, but it is still mostly unclear how gene expression levels change in pathogens during the initial stages of infections. In this work, using Aliivibrio salmonicida we studied the immediate changes in transcription levels in response to a sudden decrease in iron levels. Microarray technology was used to monitor global changes in transcriptional levels. Cultures of A. salmonicida were grown to mid log phase before the iron chelator 2,2’-dipyridyl was added and samples were collected after 15 minutes of growth. Using our statistical cut-off values, we retrieved thirty-two differentially expressed genes where the most up-regulated genes belong to an operon encoding proteins responsible for producing the siderophore bisucaberin. Overall design: Six biological replicates of A. salmonicida wild type strain LFI1238 were grown in suspension in LB medium, at 8 °C , 200 rpm and split in two halves at OD600nm 0.5, keeping one half of each replicate as control (still growing while the treated samples were growing with 2,2-dipyridyl treatment) while the other half were treated with 50µM 2,2-dipyridyl for 15 minutes. Less...