Identification of virulence factors in vibrio vulnificus by comparative transcriptomic analyses between clinical and environmental isolates using cDNA microarray

J Microbiol Biotechnol. 2011 Dec;21(12):1228-35. doi: 10.4014/jmb.1111.11016.

Abstract

We compared the gene expression among four clinical and five environmental V. vulnificus isolates, using a cDNA microarray containing 131 genes possibly associated with pathogenicity, transport, signal transduction, and gene regulations in the pathogen. cDNAs from total RNAs of these isolates were hybridized into the cDNA microarray using the cDNA of the wild-type strain MO6/24-O as a reference. We focused on selecting differentially expressed (DE) genes between clinical and environmental isolates using a modified t-statistic. We could detect two statistically significant DE genes between virulent isolates and less-virulent isolates with a marginal statistical significance (pvalue of 0.008). These were genes putatively encoding pilin and adenlyate cylase. Real time-PCR confirmed that these two selected genes transcribed in significantly higher levels in virulent isolates than in less-virulent isolates. Mutants with lesions in the gene encoding pilin showed significantly higher LD50 values than that of wild type.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics*
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism
  • Environmental Microbiology
  • Gene Expression Profiling*
  • Humans
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
  • Vibrio Infections / microbiology*
  • Vibrio vulnificus / genetics*
  • Vibrio vulnificus / isolation & purification*
  • Vibrio vulnificus / metabolism
  • Virulence Factors / genetics*
  • Virulence Factors / metabolism

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Virulence Factors