Listeria monocytogenes is a food-associated bacterium that is responsible for food-related illnesses worldwide. In the L. monocytogenes EGD-e genome, FlhB, FliM, and FliY (encoded by lmo0679, lmo0699, and lmo0700, respectively) are annotated as putative flagella biosynthesis factors, but their functions remain unknown. To explore whether FlhB, FliM, and FliY are involved in Listeria flagella sy...

Three sets of primers were designed for PCR detection and differentiation of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli. The first PCR assay was designed to coidentify C. jejuni and C. coli based on their 16S rRNA gene sequences. The second PCR assay, based on the hippuricase gene sequence, identified all tested reference strains of C. jejuni and also strains of that species which lack detecta...

For epidemiological tracing of the thermotolerant Campylobacter species C. jejuni and C. coli, reliable and highly discriminatory typing techniques are necessary. In this study the genotyping techniques of flagellin typing (flaA typing), pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), automated ribotyping, and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) fingerprinting were compared. The following as...

A Serpulina (Treponema) hyodysenteriae expression library was constructed in vector lambda ZAP and screened with a polyclonal antiserum raised against S. hyodysenteriae periplasmic flagella. A single immunoreactive plaque was chosen for further analysis. The recombinant phage from this plaque contained a gene encoding the 44-kDa protein that is on the outer layer (or sheath) of the periplasmic ...

Shewanella oneidensis is a highly motile organism by virtue of a polar flagellum. Unlike most flagellated bacteria, it contains only one major chromosome segment encoding the components of the flagellum with the exception of the motor proteins. In this region, three genes encode flagellinsaccording to the original genome annotation. However, we find that only flaA and flaB encode functional fil...

Two methods were devised to select a series of overlapping deletion mutations carried on episomal elements in Escherichia coli. The deletions were then used in an analysis of (i) the relative position on the genome of previously described mutant loci in the flagellar genes, (ii) the relative position of a newly defined cistron, flaN, and (iii) the orientation and direction of transcription of g...

Campylobacter coli VC167, which undergoes an antigenic flagellar variation, contains two full-length flagellin genes, flaA and flaB, that are located adjacent to one another in a tandem orientation and are 91.5% homologous. The gene product of flaB, which has an Mr of 58,946, has 93% sequence homology to the gene product of flaA, which has an Mr of 58,916 (S. M. Logan, T. J. Trust, and P. Guerr...

The filaments of spirochete periplasmic flagella (PFs) have a unique structure and protein composition. In most spirochetes, the PFs consist of a core of at least three related proteins (FlaB1, FlaB2, and FlaB3) and a sheath of FlaA protein. The functions of these filament proteins remain unknown. In this study, we used a multidisciplinary approach to examine the role of these proteins in deter...

Flagellin is a key component of the flagella of many pathogens, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Flagellin is an attractive vaccine candidate because it is readily produced and manipulated as a recombinant protein and has intrinsic adjuvant activity mediated through TLR5. Although DNA vaccines encoding native Pseudomonas B-type (FliC) or A-type (FlaA) flagellin are strongly immunogenic, the re...

The unsheathed flagellar filament of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 is composed of two highly homologous flagellins, FlaA, and the major structural unit, FlaB. We identified a gene cluster, SO_3261-SO_3265 (now sfmABCDE), that is required for the formation of a fully functional filament and for motility. The predicted function of the corresponding gene products strongly indicated a role in flagelli...