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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2008, p. 4509-4515, Vol. 74, No. 14
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00336-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The hmsHFRS Operon of Xenorhabdus nematophila Is Required for Biofilm Attachment to Caenorhabditis elegans{triangledown}

Kevin Drace1,2 and Creg Darby1,2*

Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, Program in Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Defense, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143,1 Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama 352942

Received 8 February 2008/ Accepted 18 May 2008

The bacterium Xenorhabdus nematophila is an insect pathogen and an obligate symbiont of the nematode Steinernema carpocapsae. X. nematophila makes a biofilm that adheres to the head of the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a capability X. nematophila shares with the biofilms made by Yersinia pestis and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. As in Yersinia spp., the X. nematophila biofilm requires a 4-gene operon, hmsHFRS. Also like its Yersinia counterparts, the X. nematophila biofilm is bound by the lectin wheat germ agglutinin, suggesting that β-linked N-acetyl-D-glucosamine or N-acetylneuraminic acid is a component of the extracellular matrix. C. elegans mutants with aberrant surfaces that do not permit Yersinia biofilm attachment also are resistant to X. nematophila biofilms. An X. nematophila hmsH mutant that failed to make biofilms on C. elegans had no detectable defect in symbiotic association with S. carpocapsae, nor was virulence reduced against the insect Manduca sexta.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco, Box 0640, San Francisco, CA 94143-0640. Phone: (415) 476-3104. Fax: (415) 476-1499. E-mail: creg.darby{at}ucsf.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 30 May 2008.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2008, p. 4509-4515, Vol. 74, No. 14
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00336-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

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