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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2002, p. 2644-2650, Vol. 68, No. 6
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.6.2644-2650.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Identification of OpuC as a Chill-Activated and Osmotically Activated Carnitine Transporter in Listeria monocytogenes

Apostolos S. Angelidis,1 Linda Tombras Smith,2 Les M. Hoffman,3 and Gary M. Smith1*

Departments of Food Science and Technology,1 Agronomy and Range Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616,2 Epicentre Technologies, Madison, Wisconsin 537133

Received 28 September 2001/ Accepted 12 March 2002

The food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes is notable for its ability to grow under osmotic stress and at low temperatures. It is known to accumulate the compatible solutes glycine betaine and carnitine from the medium in response to osmotic or chill stress, and this accumulation confers tolerance to these stresses. Two permeases that transport glycine betaine have been identified, both of which are activated by hyperosmotic stress and one of which is activated by low temperature. An osmotically activated transporter for carnitine, OpuC, has also been identified. We have isolated a Tn917-LTV3 insertional mutant that could not be rescued from hyperosmotic stress by exogenous carnitine. The mutant, LTS4a, grew indistinguishably from a control strain (DP-L1044) in the absence of stress or in the absence of carnitine, but DP-L1044 grew substantially faster under osmotic or chill stress in the presence of carnitine. LTS4a was found to be strongly impaired in KCl-activated as well as chill-activated carnitine transport. 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of perchloric acid extracts showed that accumulation of carnitine by LTS4a was negligible under all conditions tested. Direct sequencing of LTS4a genomic DNA with a primer based on Tn917-LTV3 yielded a 487-bp sequence, which allowed us to determine that the opuC operon had been interrupted by the transposon. It can be concluded that opuC encodes a carnitine transporter that can be activated by either hyperosmotic stress or chill and that the transport system plays a significant role in the tolerance of L. monocytogenes to both forms of environmental stress.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616. Phone: (530) 752-6168. Fax: (530) 752-4759. E-mail: gmsmith{at}ucdavis.edu.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2002, p. 2644-2650, Vol. 68, No. 6
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.6.2644-2650.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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