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Infection and Immunity, December 2003, p. 6734-6741, Vol. 71, No. 12
0019-9567/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.71.12.6734-6741.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Association of Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis YafD with Resistance to Chicken Egg Albumen

Sangwei Lu,* Patrick B. Killoran, and Lee W. Riley

Program in Infectious Diseases and Immunity, School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720

Received 27 June 2003/ Returned for modification 20 August 2003/ Accepted 4 September 2003

Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis is a major cause of food-borne diseases in industrialized countries. The incidence of S. enterica serovar Enteritidis infections has increased substantially in recent decades, and S. enterica serovar Enteritidis is now one of the leading serovars of Salmonella in the United States. A unique epidemiological characteristic of S. enterica serovar Enteritidis is its association with chicken shell eggs, since approximately 80% of all human gastrointestinal diseases can be traced to contaminated egg products. Eggs are contaminated when bacteria from reproductive tissues of infected hens are packaged into the eggs and persist inside the hostile egg albumen environment. Therefore, resistance to egg albumen is an important aspect in the transmission of S. enterica serovar Enteritidis. We identified a gene, yafD from S. enterica serovar Enteritidis, whose overexpression conferred upon S. enterica serovar Typhimurium enhanced resistance to egg albumen, while disruption of this gene in S. enterica serovar Enteritidis rendered the organism more susceptible to egg albumen. YafD is homologous to members of an exonuclease-endonuclease-phosphatase family, including some enzymes involved in DNA repair. Furthermore, we discovered that egg albumen has nuclease activities and uses both circular and linear DNA as substrates. We propose that YafD provides a survival advantage to S. enterica serovar Enteritidis in eggs by repairing DNA damage caused by egg albumen and that it may be one of the biologic determinants that contribute to the epidemiological association of S. enterica serovar Enteritidis with egg products.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 140 Warren Hall, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720. Phone: (510) 643-2949. Fax: (510) 643-9955. E-mail: sangwei{at}uclink4.berkeley.edu.

Editor: S. H. E. Kaufmann

Infection and Immunity, December 2003, p. 6734-6741, Vol. 71, No. 12
0019-9567/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.71.12.6734-6741.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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