Effects of dam and seqA genes on biofilm and pellicle formation in Salmonella

ABSTRACT

In this study, the effects of dam and seqA genes on the formation of pellicle and biofilm was determined using five different Salmonella serovars S. Group C1 (DMC2 encoded), S. Typhimurium (DMC4 encoded), S. Virchow (DMC11 encoded), S. Enteritidis (DMC22 encoded), and S. Montevideo (DMC89 encoded). dam and seqA mutants in Salmonella serovars were performed by the single step lambda red recombination method. The mutants obtained were examined according to the properties of biofilm on the polystyrene surfaces and the pellicle formation on the liquid medium. As a result of these investigations, it was determined that the biofilm formation properties on polystyrene surfaces decreased significantly (p < 0.05) in all tested dam and seqA mutants, while the pellicle formation properties were lost in the liquid medium. When pBAD24 vector, containing the dam and seqA genes cloned behind the inducible arabinose promoter, transduced into dam and seqA mutant strains, it was determined that the biofilm formation properties on the polystyrene surfaces reached to the natural strains’ level in all mutant strains. Also, the pellicle formation ability was regained in the liquid media. All these data demonstrate that dam and seqA genes play an important role in the formation of biofilm and pellicle structures in Salmonella serovars.

KEYWORDS:

• dam
• seqA
• biofilm
• pellicle
• Salmonella

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grant 215Z087 from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). We also thank to Yurtsev UYMAZ for proofreading and editing our research paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [215Z087].