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Volume 149, Issue 7

Production of the signalling molecule, autoinducer-2, by : lack of evidence for a concerted transcriptional response Free

Abstract

is a Gram-negative bacterium which is an important causative agent of septicaemia and meningitis. LuxS has been shown to be involved in the biosynthesis of a quorum sensing molecule, autoinducer-2 (AI-2), known to play a role in virulence in , as well as other bacteria. Evidence that serogroup B of produces AI-2, along with the observation that a mutant of this strain had attenuated virulence in an infant rat model of bacteraemia, led to further investigation of the role of this quorum sensing molecule in . In this study, it is demonstrated that AI-2 is not involved in regulating growth of meningococci, either in culture or in contact with epithelial cells. Furthermore, transcriptional profiling using DNA microarrays shows an absence of the concerted regulation seen in other bacteria. Taken together, these data suggest that in , AI-2 may be a metabolic by-product and not a cell-to-cell signalling molecule.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
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  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): CM, conditioned medium , OMP, outer-membrane protein and SAM, Significance Analysis of Microarrays
SGM
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2003-07-01
2024-04-20
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Production of the signalling molecule, autoinducer-2, by Neisseria meningitidis: lack of evidence for a concerted transcriptional response
Microbiology 149, 1859 (2003); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.26185-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26185-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.26185-0
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