Hypermotility in Clostridium perfringens strain SM101 is due to spontaneous mutations in genes linked to cell division.

ABSTRACT: Clostridium perfringens is a Gram-positive anaerobic pathogen of humans and animals. Although they lack flagella, C. perfringens bacteria can still migrate across surfaces using a type of gliding motility that involves the formation of filaments of bacteria lined up in an end-to-end conformation. In strain SM101, hypermotile variants are often found arising from the edges of colonies on agar plates. Hypermotile cells are longer than wild-type cells, and video microscopy of their gliding motility suggests that they form long, thin filaments that move rapidly away from a colony, analogously to swarmer cells in bacteria with flagella. To identify the cause(s) of the hypermotility phenotype, the genome sequences of normal strains and their direct hypermotile derivatives were determined and com

SUBMITTER: Liu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4054169 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature