1887

Abstract

Cellobiose metabolism is linked to the virulence properties in numerous bacterial pathogens. Here, we characterized a putative cellobiose PTS operon of to investigate the role of cellobiose metabolism in pathogenesis. Our gene knockout experiments demonstrated that the putative cellobiose operon enables uptake of cellobiose into and allows growth when cellobiose is provided as the sole carbon source in minimal medium. Additionally, using reporter gene fusion assays and DNA pulldown experiments, we show that its transcription is regulated by CelR, a novel transcriptional repressor protein, which directly binds to the upstream region of the cellobiose operon to control its expression. We have also identified cellobiose metabolism to play a significant role in physiology as observed by the reduction of sporulation efficiency when cellobiose uptake was compromised in the mutant strain. In corroboration to study findings, our hamster challenge experiment showed a significant reduction of pathogenicity by the cellobiose mutant strain in both the primary and the recurrent infection model – substantiating the role of cellobiose metabolism in pathogenesis.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • national institute of allergy and infectious diseases (Award 1R03AI135762-01A1)
    • Principle Award Recipient: RevathiGovind
  • national institute of allergy and infectious diseases (Award 1R15AI122173)
    • Principle Award Recipient: RevathiGovind
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/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001079
2021-08-19
2024-12-10
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