Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 51, Pages 20742-20747Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108963108
Keywords
nongenetic variation; pyroptosis; bet-hedging; fliC; pathogenesis
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Funding
- University of Washington
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences Public Health Service National Research Service [T32 GM07270]
- National Institutes of Health [P50 HG 02360, U19 AI 090882A]
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Sensing and adapting to the environment is one strategy by which bacteria attempt to maximize fitness in an unpredictable world; another is the stochastic generation of phenotypically distinct subgroups within a genetically clonal population. In culture, Salmonella Typhimurium populations are bistable for the expression of flagellin. We report that YdiV controls this expression pattern by preventing transcription of the sigma factor that recruits RNA polymerase to the flagellin promoter. Bistability ensues when the sigma factor is repressed in a subpopulation of cells, resulting in two phenotypes: flagellin expressors and flagellin nonexpressors. Although the ability to swim is presumably a critical survival trait, flagellin activates eukaryotic defense pathways, and Salmonella restrict the production of flagellin during systemic infection. Salmonella mutants lacking YdiV are unable to fully repress flagellin at systemic sites, rendering them vulnerable to caspase-1 mediated colonization restriction. Thus, a regulatory mechanism producing bistability also impacts Salmonella virulence.
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