Journal article

AatA is a novel autotransporter and virulence factor of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli

G Li, Y Feng, S Kariyawasam, KA Tivendale, Y Wannemuehler, F Zhou, CM Logue, CL Miller, LK Nolan

Infection and Immunity | Published : 2010

Abstract

Autotransporters (AT) are widespread in Gram-negative bacteria, and many of them are involved in virulence. An open reading frame (APECO1-O1CoBM96) encoding a novel AT was located in the pathogenicity island of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) O1's virulence plasmid, pAPEC-O1-ColBM. This 3.5-kb APEC autotransporter gene (aatA) is predicted to encode a 123.7-kDa protein with a 25-amino-acid signal peptide, an 857-amino-acid passenger domain, and a 284-amino-acid β domain. The three-dimensional structure of AatA was also predicted by the threading method using the I-TASSER online server and then was refined using four-body contact potentials. Molecular analysis of AatA revealed that it..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by USDA NRICGP Microbial Functional Genomics Program


Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Iowa Livestock Health Advisory Council (ILHAC) and the USDA NRICGP Microbial Functional Genomics Program (grant 20083560418805). We thank Paul M. Mangiamele for technical assistance and Kathy Mou, Ashraf Hussein, and Musafiri Karama for their indispensable help with the animal tests.