A Dam methylation mutant of Klebsiella pneumoniae is partially attenuated.

Joanna S Mehling, Heather Lavender, Steven Clegg

Department of Microbiology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.

FEMS microbiology letters 2007 Mar

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In Klebsiella pneumoniae, a chromosomal insertion mutation was constructed in the dam gene, which encodes DNA adenine methylase (Dam), resulting in a mutant unable to methylate specific nucleotides. In some bacteria, the Dam methylase has been shown to play an important role in virulence gene regulation as well as in methyl-directed mismatch repair and the regulation of replication initiation. Disruption of the normal Dam function by either eliminating or greatly increasing expression in several organisms has been shown to cause attenuation of virulence in murine models of infection. In K. pneumoniae, a mutation-eliminating Dam function is shown here to result in only partial attenuation following intranasal and intraperitoneal infection of Balb/C mice.

Citation

Joanna S Mehling, Heather Lavender, Steven Clegg. A Dam methylation mutant of Klebsiella pneumoniae is partially attenuated. FEMS microbiology letters. 2007 Mar;268(2):187-93