Project description:Clostridioides difficile is one of the most common nosocomial pathogens and a global public health threat. Upon colonization of the gastrointestinal tract, C. difficile is exposed to a rapidly changing polymicrobial environment and a dynamic metabolic milieu. Despite the link between the gut microbiota and susceptibility to C. difficile, the impact of synergistic interactions between the microbiota and pathogens on the outcome of infection is largely unknown. Here, we show that microbial cooperation between C. difficile and Enterococcus has a profound impact on the growth, metabolism, and pathogenesis of C. difficile.. Through a process of nutrient restriction and metabolite cross-feeding, E. faecalis shapes the metabolic environment in the gut to enhance C. difficile fitness and increase toxin production. These findings demonstrate that members of the microbiota, such as Enterococcus, have a previously unappreciated impact on C. difficile behavior and virulence.
Project description:The 2017-2019 foodborne outbreak of Salmonella enterica serovar Reading (S. Reading) in North America revealed the need for effective control of this serovar in turkey production. This study evaluated two live-attenuated Salmonella vaccines against an outbreak-associated strain of S. Reading in turkeys. At 1 day and 3 weeks of age, male turkey poults were either mock-vaccinated or given either an internally developed cross-protective vaccine and a commercially available vaccine. At 7 weeks of age, poults were challenged with S. Reading; one mock-vaccinated group was mock-challenged. Along with assessment of Salmonella colonization and dissemination, acute transcriptomic responses in the cecal tonsil were characterized at 2 days post inoculation and revealed decreased expression of genes encoding intestinal transporters and tight junction proteins. Vaccination with either vaccine mitigated most of the transcriptional changes in intestinal health-related genes induced by S. Reading in turkey cecal tonsil.
Project description:Salmonella enterica causes serious global burden of morbidity and mortality and is a major cause of infant bacteremia in sub Saharan Africa. Diseases caused by Salmonella are treatable with antibiotics but successful antibiotic treatment has become difficult due to antimicrobial resistance. An effective vaccine together with public health effort may therefore be a better strategy to control these infections. Protective immunity against Salmonella depends primarily on T cell-mediated immune responses and therefore identifying relevant T cell antigens is necessary for Salmonella vaccine development. Our laboratory has used an immunoproteomics approach to identify Chlamydia T cell antigens that exhibited significant protection against Chlamydia infection in mice. In this study, we infected murine bone marrow derived dendritic cells from C57BL/6 mice with Salmonella enterica strain SL1344 followed by isolation of MHC class I and II- molecules and elution of bound peptides. The sequences of the peptides were then identified using tandem mass spectrometry. We identified 87 MHC class II and 23 MHC class I Salmonella derived peptides. Four of 12 peptides stimulated IFN-? production by CD4 T cells from the spleens of mice with persistent Salmonella infection. These antigens will be useful for Salmonella immunobiology research and are potential Salmonella vaccine candidates.
Project description:Genetic and genomic approaches have been successfully used to assign genes to distinct regulatory networks. However, the present challenge of distinguishing differentially regulated genes within a network is particularly hard because members of a given network tend to have similar regulatory features. We have addressed this challenge by developing a method, termed Gene Promoter Scan, that discriminates coregulated promoters by simultaneously considering both multiple cis promoter features and gene expression. Here, we apply this method to probe the regulatory networks governed by the PhoP/PhoQ two-component system in the enteric bacteria Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica. Our analysis uncovered members of the PhoP regulon and interactions with other regulatory systems that were not discovered in previous approaches. The predictions made by Gene Promoter Scan were experimentally validated to establish that the PhoP protein uses multiple mechanisms to control gene transcription, regulates acid resistance determinants, and is a central element in a highly connected network.