Metabolomic analysis of the food-borne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni: application of direct injection mass spectrometry for mutant characterisation.

ABSTRACT: Campylobacter jejuni is the most frequent cause of human food-borne bacterial gastroenteritis but its physiology and biochemistry are poorly understood. Only a few amino-acids can be catabolised and these are known to be important for host colonization. Here we have established methods for rapid high throughput analyses of global metabolism in C. jejuni using direct injection mass spectrometry (DIMS) to compare metabolite fingerprints of wild-type and mutant strains. Principal component analyses show that the metabolic fingerprint of mutants that have a genomic deletion in genes for key amino-acid catabolic enzymes (either sdaA, serine dehydratase; aspA, aspartase or aspB, aspartate:glutamate transaminase) can easily be distinguished from the isogenic par

SUBMITTER: Howlett RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4145198 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature