Screening for inhibitors of mutacin synthesis in Streptococcus mutans using fluorescent reporter strains.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Within the polymicrobial dental plaque biofilm, bacteria kill competitors by excreting mixtures of bacteriocins, resulting in improved fitness and survival. Inhibiting their bacteriocin synthesis might therefore be a useful strategy to eliminate specific pathogens. We used Streptococcus mutans, a highly acidogenic inhabitant of dental plaque, as a model and searched for natural products that reduced mutacin synthesis. To this end we fused the promoter of mutacin VI to the GFP+ gene and integrated the construct into the genome of S. mutans UA159 by single homologous recombination.

Results

The resulting reporter strain 423p - gfp + was used to screen 297 secondary metabolites from different sources, mainly myxobacteria and fungi, for their ability to reduce the fluo

SUBMITTER: Premnath P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5870221 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature