Infection and Immunity, January 2004, p. 22-28, Vol. 72, No. 1
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.1.22-28.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Salmonella enterica Serovar Paratyphi C Carries an Inactive Shufflon
Connie K. P. Tam,* Jim Hackett, and Christina Morris
Department of Biochemistry, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China
Received 15 April 2003/
Returned for modification 30 June 2003/
Accepted 9 September 2003
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi uses type IVB pili to facilitate bacterial self-association, but only when the PilV proteins (potential minor pilus proteins) are not synthesized. This pilus-mediated event may be important in typhoid fever pathogenesis. We initially show that S. enterica serovar Paratyphi C strains harbor a pil operon very similar to that of serovar Typhi. An important difference, however, is located in the shufflon which concludes the pil operon. In serovar Typhi, the Rci recombinase acts upon two 19-bp inverted repeats to invert the terminal region of the pilV gene, thereby disrupting PilV synthesis and permitting bacterial self-association. In serovar Paratyphi C, however, the shufflon is essentially inactive because each of the Rci 19-bp substrates has acquired a single base pair insertion. A PilV protein is thus synthesized whenever the pil operon is active, and bacterial self-association therefore does not occur in serovar Paratyphi C. The data thus suggest that serovar Typhi bacterial self-association using type IVB pili may be important in the pathogenesis of epidemic enteric fever.
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biochemistry, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China. Phone: 852 2358-7275. Fax: 852 2719-8158. E-mail: pinecone{at}ust.hk.
Editor: V. J. DiRita
Infection and Immunity, January 2004, p. 22-28, Vol. 72, No. 1
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.1.22-28.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Copyright © 2004 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.