2004 West Coast Worm Meeting abstract 245
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| 1 | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA, 94305-5124 |
| 2 | Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA, 94305-5120 |
Salmonella typhimurium are gram negative bacteria that infect a variety of organisms including humans. Previous work has shown that S. typhimurium can colonize and proliferate in the gut of Caenorhabditis elegans (Aballay et al. 2000; Labrousse et al. 2000; Aballay and Ausubel 2001). Bacterial virulence factors known to be critical in other animal models have been identified as being important for worm mortality as well (Tenor et al. 2004).
We are interested in the early events of infection of the nematode by S. typhimurium. In order to identify novel bacterial factors important for initial colonization by S. typhimurium, we screened a bacterial transposon library for Salmonella mutants that fail to persist in C. elegans. Eighteen putative mutants have been recovered. Several bacterial genes have been identified and tested for attenuation of nematode mortality and replication in macrophages. Identification of the remaining mutants is in progress. Our findings suggest that bacterial chemotaxis is involved persistence within the worm. In carrying out a screen to identify genes required for initial establishment of the bacteria, we hope to further dissect specific host-pathogen interactions.