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Infection and Immunity, December 2004, p. 6902-6913, Vol. 72, No. 12
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.12.6902-6913.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Identification of Two Mycobacterium marinum Loci That Affect Interactions with Macrophages

Sahar H. El-Etr,{dagger} Selvakumar Subbian, Suat L. G. Cirillo, and Jeffrey D. Cirillo*

Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska

Received 10 June 2004/ Returned for modification 30 August 2004/ Accepted 4 September 2004

Mycobacterium marinum is closely related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the cause of tuberculosis in humans. M. marinum has become an important model system for the study of the molecular mechanisms involved in causing tuberculosis in humans. Through molecular genetic analysis of the differences between pathogenic and nonpathogenic mycobacteria, we identified two loci that affect the ability of M. marinum to infect macrophages, designated mel1 and mel2. In silico analyses of the 11 putative genes in these loci suggest that mel1 encodes secreted proteins that include a putative membrane protein and two putative transglutaminases, whereas mel2 is involved in secondary metabolism or biosynthesis of fatty acids. Interestingly, mel2 is unique to M. marinum and the M. tuberculosis complex and not present in any other sequenced mycobacterial species. M. marinum mutants with mutations in mel1 and mel2, constructed by allelic exchange, are defective in the ability to infect both murine and fish macrophage cell lines. These data suggest that the genes in mel1 and mel2 are important for the ability of M. marinum to infect host cells.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 203 VBS, Fair and East Campus Loop, Lincoln, NE 68583. Phone: (402) 472-8587. Fax: (402) 472-9690. E-mail: jcirillo1{at}unl.edu.

Editor: V. J. DiRita

{dagger} Present address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305.

Infection and Immunity, December 2004, p. 6902-6913, Vol. 72, No. 12
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.12.6902-6913.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

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