Impact of horizontal gene transfer on emergence and stability of cooperative virulence in Salmonella Typhimurium.

ABSTRACT: Intestinal inflammation fuels the transmission of Salmonella Typhimurium (S.Tm). However, a substantial fitness cost is associated with virulence expression. Mutations inactivating transcriptional virulence regulators generate attenuated variants profiting from inflammation without enduring virulence cost. Such variants interfere with the transmission of fully virulent clones. Horizontal transfer of functional regulatory genes (HGT) into attenuated variants could nevertheless favor virulence evolution. To address this hypothesis, we cloned hilD, coding for the master regulator of virulence, into a conjugative plasmid that is highly transferrable during intestinal colonization. The resulting mobile hilD allele allows virulence to emerge from avirulent populations, and to be restored in atte

SUBMITTER: Bakkeren E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9001671 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature