1887

Abstract

Production of biofilm in is mediated through enzymes produced by the four-gene operon and is subject to phenotypic variation. The purpose of these experiments was to investigate the regulation of and transcription in phenotypic variants produced by multiple unrelated isolates of . Ten isolates were chosen for the study, four of which contained IS. IS mediates a reversible inactivation of in approximately 30 % of phenotypic variants. All ten strains produced at least two types of phenotypic variant (intermediate and smooth) in which biofilm formation was significantly impaired. Reversion studies indicated that all phenotypic variants were stable after overnight growth, but began to revert to other phenotypic forms after 5 days of incubation at 37 °C. transcriptional analysis was performed on phenotypic variants from three IS-negative isolates; 1457, SE5 and 14765. This analysis demonstrated that transcription was significantly reduced in the majority of phenotypic variants, although two variants from SE5 and 1457 produced wild-type quantities of transcript. Analysis of seven additional phenotypic variants from SE5 revealed that expression was only reduced in three. Expression of transcript was unaffected in all smooth phenotypic variants. Mutations within were identified in two SE5 variants with wild-type levels of transcription. It is concluded that mutation and transcriptional regulation of are the primary mechanisms that govern phenotypic variation of biofilm formation within IS-negative .

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2004-05-01
2024-03-28
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