The prevalence of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis is gradually decreasing in poultry flocks in the EU, which may result in the demand for a vaccine that allows for the differentiation of vaccinated flocks from those infected by wild-type S. Enteritidis. In this study, we therefore constructed a (Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 1) SPI1-lon mutant with or without fliC encoding for S. Ente...

In spring 2013, human infections with a novel avian influenza A (H7N9) virus were reported in China. The number of cases has increased with over 200 mortalities reported to date. However, there is currently no vaccine available for the H7 subtype of influenza A virus. Virus-specific cellular immune responses play a critical role in virus clearance during influenza infection. In this study, we u...

Salmonella is one of the primary causes of foodborne disease, especially Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica (I) which has caused ~99% of clinical salmonellosis cases for humans and domestic mammals. The flagella genes, fliC and fljB, which encode the Salmonella phase 1 and phase 2 antigens respectively, are considered as the Salmonella serotype determinant genes, and contribute to the virulenc...

BACKGROUND A novel influenza virus, subtype H7N9, circulated through China in 2013-2014. Its higher rates of human infection in a wide range of locations within China and the associated increased likelihood of human-to-human transmission have caused global concern. Recombinant subunit vaccines provide safe and targeted protection against viral infections. However, the protective efficacy of rec...

Ralstonia solanacearum, a widely distributed and economically important plant pathogen, invades the roots of diverse plant hosts from the soil and aggressively colonizes the xylem vessels, causing a lethal wilting known as bacterial wilt disease. By examining bacteria from the xylem vessels of infected plants, we found that R. solanacearum is essentially nonmotile in planta, although it can be ...

Improving DNA vaccination remains a fundamental goal in vaccine research. Theoretically, this could be achieved by molecules encoded by DNA capable of activating TLRs to mimic inflammatory responses generated by infection. Therefore, we constructed an expression vector that allows mammalian cells to express the TLR5 agonist flagellin (FliC) at the cell surface. In vitro, cell lines expressing F...

Edwardsiella tarda is a flagellated gram-negative bacterium which causes edwardsiellosis in fish. FliC, as a flagellar filament structural protein, is hypothesized to be involved in the pathogenesis of infection. In this study, a fliC in-frame deletion mutant of a virulent isolate of E. tarda was constructed through double crossover allelic exchange by means of the suicide vector pRE112, and it...

Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a systemic granulomatous disease caused by the dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. Anti-PCM vaccine formulations based on the secreted fungal cell wall protein (gp43) or the derived P10 sequence containing a CD4(+) T-cell-specific epitope have shown promising results. In the present study, we evaluated new anti-PCM vaccine formulations based on the in...

Pathogen attachment is a crucial early step in mucosal infections. This step is mediated by important virulence factors, such as surface proteins. Clostridium difficile surface proteins have been identified as (i) adhesins (the flagellar cap protein FliD; the flagellin FliC; and the cell wall protein Cwp 66 with a two domain-structure [Cw 66 N-terminal and Cwp 66 C-terminal domains]) and (ii) p...

The occurrence of unilateral flagellar phase variation was previously demonstrated in Escherichia coli strains carrying the non-fliC flagellin-specifying locus flk. In this study, we investigated the mechanism involved in this process. By using sequencing and sequence analysis, the flk region between the chromosomal genes yhaC and rnpB was characterized in all described flk-positive E. coli str...