Commensal-to-pathogen transition: One-single transposon insertion results in two pathoadaptive traits in Escherichia coli -macrophage interaction.

ABSTRACT: Escherichia coli is both a harmless commensal in the intestines of many mammals, as well as a dangerous pathogen. The evolutionary paths taken by strains of this species in the commensal-to-pathogen transition are complex and can involve changes both in the core genome, as well in the pan-genome. One way to understand the likely paths that a commensal strain of E. coli takes when evolving pathogenicity is through experimentally evolving the strain under the selective pressures that it will have to withstand as a pathogen. Here, we report that a commensal strain, under continuous pressure from macrophages, recurrently acquired a transposable element insertion, which resulted in two key phenotypic changes: increased intracellular survival, through the delay of phagosome maturation and increa

SUBMITTER: Proenca JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5495878 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature