Campus Units

Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

12-2017

Journal or Book Title

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Volume

83

Issue

24

First Page

e01685-17

DOI

10.1128/AEM.01685-17

Abstract

Campylobacter jejuni is a leading cause of foodborne illnesses worldwide. As a microaerophilic organism, C. jejuni must be able to defend against oxidative stress encountered both in the host and in the environment. How Campylobacter utilizes a mutation-based mechanism for adaptation to oxidative stress is still unknown. Here we present a previously undescribed phenotypic and genetic mechanism that promotes the emergence of oxidative stress resistant mutants. Specifically, we showed that a naturally occurring mutator phenotype, resulting from a loss of function mutation in the DNA repair enzyme MutY, increased oxidative stress resistance (OXR) in C. jejuni. We further demonstrated that MutY malfunction didn't directly contribute to the OXR phenotype, but increased the spontaneous mutation rate in the peroxide regulator gene perR, which functions as a repressor for multiple genes involved in oxidative stress resistance. Mutations in PerR resulted in loss of its DNA binding function and derepression of PerR-controlled oxidative stress defense genes, thereby conferring an OXR phenotype and facilitating Campylobacter survival under oxidative stress. These findings reveal a new mechanism that promotes the emergence of spontaneous OXR mutants in bacterial organisms.

Comments

This article is published as Dai, Lei, Orhan Sahin, Yizhi Tang, and Qijing Zhang. "A Mutator Phenotype Promoting the Emergence of Spontaneous Oxidative Stress-Resistant Mutants in Campylobacter jejuni." Applied and environmental microbiology 83, no. 24 (2017): e01685-17. doi: 10.1128/AEM.01685-17. Posted with permission.

Copyright Owner

American Society for Microbiology

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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