To determine the effect of pH values on the expression of the tagged ORFs, bacterial strains were grown under different pH conditions. Figure3summarizes the results of the effect of pH on the expression of SPI-1 proteins. These results indicated that the expression of the tagged SPI-1 proteins, except PrgI and SipB, was down-regulated at low pH (e.g. pH3.0 and pH5.0)
Selleckchem LDN-193189 and that neutral and basic conditions (i.e. pH7.2 and pH8.4) induced the expression of SPI-1 proteins. In contrast, SipB had the highest expression at pH5.0. PrgI had the highest expression at pH 3.0 compared to that at pH5.0 and pH7.0 (Figure3), suggesting that this protein may be expressed at a considerable level as early as in the stomach duringSalmonellainfectionin vivo. Figure 3 Effect of pH values on the expression of the tagged SPI-1 proteins. Cultures of the tagged strains T-spoE2, T-spaO, T-prgI, T-sptP, T-sipB, and T-sipA were grown in the presence PCI-32765 supplier of culture media at pH3.0, 5.0, 7.0, 7.2, and 8.4, as described in Methods and Materials. The values of the relative expression, which are the means from triplicate experiments,
represent the ratios for the level of the tagged protein under the pH conditions to the control pH7.0 condition. The standard deviation is indicated by the error bars. (C) Effect of osmolarity on the expression High osmolarity is one of the environmental stresses that bacteria encounter in the intestines. Previous reports indicated that osmolarity was an independent factor affecting the virulence of several bacterial pathogens in the gut and that high osmolarity may promoteSalmonellaadhesion and invasion to intestinal epithelial cells [22]. Recently, it has been reported that the transcription levels of SPI-1 genessipB,sipC, andsipDare significantly enhanced GBA3 in the presence of high osmolarity (e.g. 300 mM NaCl) in a genome-wide scanning selleck screening library experiment usingSalmonellanucleotide microarray [19,24]. However, the effect of the osmolarity on the protein
expression of SPI-1 factors has not been extensively investigated [25]. To test the influence of osmolarity on the protein levels of SPI-1 factors, bacterial strains were grown in the presence of different concentrations of NaCl. The expression of the tagged proteins was determined using Western analyses and the results are summarized in Figure4. Osmolarity appeared to have no significant impact on the expression of SpaO and SptP. Higher osmolarity of up to 340 mM NaCl favored the expression of PrgI and SipB, while the very high concentration of NaCl at 680 mM inhibited the expression of SopE2 (Figure4). Figure 4 Effect of osmolarity on the expression of the tagged SPI-1 proteins. Cultures of the tagged strains T-spoE2, T-spaO, T-prgI, T-sptP, T-sipB, and T-sipA were grown in the presence of culture media under different concentrations of NaCl, as described in Methods and Materials.