The post-translational modification of the Clostridium difficile flagellin affects motility, cell surface properties and virulence.

ABSTRACT: Clostridium difficile is a prominent nosocomial pathogen, proliferating and causing enteric disease in individuals with a compromised gut microflora. We characterized the post-translational modification of flagellin in C. difficile 630. The structure of the modification was solved by nuclear magnetic resonance and shown to contain an N-acetylglucosamine substituted with a phosphorylated N-methyl-l-threonine. A reverse genetics approach investigated the function of the putative four-gene modification locus. All mutants were found to have truncated glycan structures by LC-MS/MS, taking into account bioinformatic analysis, we propose that the open reading frame CD0241 encodes a kinase involved in the transfer of the phosphate to the threonine, the CD0242 protein catalyses the addition of the

SUBMITTER: Faulds-Pain A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4441256 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature