Department of Food Hygiene and Consumer Health Protection, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław, Poland.
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, GA, Augusta, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 4;14(1):26574. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-77556-7.
Campylobacter jejuni is a major cause of food- and water-borne bacterial infections in humans. A key factor helping bacteria to survive adverse environmental conditions is biofilm formation ability. Nonetheless, the molecular basis underlying biofilm formation by C. jejuni remains poorly understood. Around thirty genes involved in the regulation and dynamics of C. jejuni biofilm formation have been described so far. We applied random transposon mutagenesis to identify new biofilm-associated genes in C. jejuni strain 81-176. Of 1350 mutants, twenty-four had a decreased ability to produce biofilm compared to the wild-type strain. Some mutants contained insertions in genes previously reported to affect the biofilm formation process. The majority of identified genes encoded hypothetical proteins. In the library of EZ-Tn5 insertion mutants, we found the cydB gene associated with respiration that was not previously linked with biofilm formation in Campylobacter. To study the involvement of the cydB gene in biofilm formation, we constructed a non-marked deletion cydB mutant together with a complemented mutant. We found that the cydB deletion-mutant formed a weaker biofilm of loosely organized structure and lower volume than the parent strain. In the present study, we demonstrated the role of the cydB gene in biofilm formation by C. jejuni.
空肠弯曲菌是人类食源性和水源性细菌感染的主要原因。帮助细菌在不利环境条件下生存的一个关键因素是生物膜形成能力。尽管如此，空肠弯曲菌生物膜形成的分子基础仍知之甚少。迄今为止，已经描述了大约 30 个参与空肠弯曲菌生物膜形成调控和动力学的基因。我们应用随机转座子诱变技术来鉴定空肠弯曲菌 81-176 株中的新的生物膜相关基因。在 1350 个突变体中，有 24 个与野生型菌株相比，生物膜形成能力降低。一些突变体在以前报道影响生物膜形成过程的基因中插入了转座子。大多数鉴定的基因编码假设蛋白。在 EZ-Tn5 插入突变体文库中，我们发现了与呼吸有关的 cydB 基因，该基因以前与弯曲菌的生物膜形成无关。为了研究 cydB 基因在生物膜形成中的作用，我们构建了一个无标记缺失 cydB 突变体和一个互补突变体。我们发现，cydB 缺失突变体形成的生物膜松散、结构疏松、体积比亲本菌株小。在本研究中，我们证明了 cydB 基因在空肠弯曲菌生物膜形成中的作用。
