Growth was followed by OD600 measured in a Secomah spectrophotometer. As 30 μM

CuSO4 may be added to the culture, we monitored its global effect on L. sakei growth. In static or anaerobic growth conditions, 30 μM CuSO4 had no effect on growth. In aeration conditions, 30 μM CuSO4 had a slight effect on growth (2-10% lower OD600 at the end BAY 11-7082 clinical trial of growth), and slightly extended viability. Meat juice was obtained from beef meat homogenized with half volume of sterile water in a Stomacher for 2 cycles of 3 min each. The supernatant obtained after centrifugation (10,000g for 15 min) was filter sterilized and stocked at -20°C (M.-C. Champomier Vergès, unpublished). Escherichia coli (DH5αF’ or TGI) was cultured aerobically in LB at 37°C. Selective pressure for plasmids was maintained in E. coli with ampicillin 100 mg.l-1, and in L. sakei, with erythromycin 5 mg.l-1. DNA techniques Standard procedures were used for DNA manipulation. Classical PCR reactions were performed with Taq polymerase (Fermentas) or Pfu

polymerase (Promega) for cloning purpose, and run in MJ research PTC-200 thermocycler. Extraction of plasmids and chromosomal DNA as well as electroporation of L. sakei and L. casei BL23 was carried out as described this website [52]. Primers are listed in additional file 4. Diversity of sigH in L. sakei L. sakei strains (18, 21, 23 K, 64, 112, 160 K, 300, 332, JG3, MF2091, MF2092, ATCC15521, CIP105422, SF771, LTH677, LTH2070) were from our collection or different sources as described [20]. PCR amplification of the sigH locus was carried out with two pairs of primers (AML31/AML32 and AML50/AML58). Sequence of the 561 nt fragment corresponding to entire CDS and the 77 nucleotides of the upstream intergenic region was performed on PCR-amplified genomic DNA using each of the four primers.

Pairwise distances were calculated by MEGA 4 [53] using a Kimura 2-parameter substitution model. Construction of sigH mutant and sigH Farnesyltransferase expression strains SigH production and sigH mutant strains were constructed from RV2002, a derivative of L. sakei 23 K that had undergone a HDAC inhibitor deletion of the lacLM gene encoding β-galactosidase [23]. Their construction used plasmids pRV610 and pRV613 [27] which contain two replication origins, one functional in E. coli (pBluescript) and one for Gram-positive bacteria (pRV500). The L. sakei σH overproducer strain sigH(hy)* was obtained by introducing plasmid pRV619 into RV2002. pRV619 was constructed from pRV613 which bears the PatkY copper-inducible promoter cassette of L. sakei fused to the E. coli lacZ reporter gene [27]. lacZ was replaced by sigH Lsa in pRV619 as follows. The sigH Lsa coding region was PCR-amplified from L. sakei strain 23 K chromosomal DNA with primers AML31 and AML32 and the BamHI/XbaI fragment was cloned into pRV613 digested by the same enzymes, using Lactobacillus casei BL23 as a host, since neither L. sakei nor E.