A functional phenylacetic acid catabolic pathway is required for full pathogenicity of Burkholderia cenocepacia in the Caenorhabditis elegans host model.

ABSTRACT: Burkholderia cenocepacia is a member of the Burkholderia cepacia complex, a group of metabolically versatile bacteria that have emerged as opportunistic pathogens in cystic fibrosis and immunocompromised patients. Previously a screen of transposon mutants in a rat pulmonary infection model identified an attenuated mutant with an insertion in paaE, a gene related to the phenylacetic acid (PA) catabolic pathway. In this study, we characterized gene clusters involved in the PA degradation pathway of B. cenocepacia K56-2 in relation to its pathogenicity in the Caenorhabditis elegans model of infection. We demonstrated that targeted-insertion mutagenesis of paaA and paaE, which encode part of the putative PA-coenzyme A (CoA) ring hydroxylation system, paaZ, coding for a putative ring opening en

SUBMITTER: Law RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2580687 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature