Abstract
Arcobacter butzleri is an emerging foodborne zoonotic pathogen that has been isolated from environmental water sources. This pathogen establishes in vitro endosymbiotic relationships with Acanthamoeba castellanii, a free-living amoeba found in environmental matrices such as soil and water. The principal aim of this study was to analyse the transcriptional pattern of flagellar (flaA-flaB-flgH-motA) and other putative virulence genes (ciaB-cadF-mviN-pldA) of A. butzleri during its interaction with A. castellanii by quantitative real-time PCR. The transcriptional analysis showed up-regulation of all genes analysed before A. butzleri became established as an endocytobiont of A. castellanii. In contrast, while A. butzleri remains an endocytobiont, a significant and sustained decrease in the transcription of all analysed genes was observed. Our findings suggest that A. butzleri requires a biphasic transcriptional pattern of flagellar and other putative virulence genes to establish an endosymbiotic relationship with A. castellanii.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT) 1110202 from Chile, Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) AT 24121322 from Chile and Fondo de Equipamiento Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Posgrado (FEQUIP2018-PL-06) from Universidad Católica de Temuco. The authors would like to thank Professor Ph.D. Jadwiga Winiecka-Krusnell (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control—ECDC) for contributing with A. castellanii T4 genotype strain.
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Medina, G., Neves, P., Flores-Martin, S. et al. Transcriptional analysis of flagellar and putative virulence genes of Arcobacter butzleri as an endocytobiont of Acanthamoeba castellanii. Arch Microbiol 201, 1075–1083 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-019-01678-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-019-01678-0