SGM Journals
Cell And Molecular Biology Of Microbes

Systematic study of genes influencing cellular chain length in Streptococcus sanguinis

Karra Evans, Victoria Stone, Lei Chen, Xiuchun Ge, Ping Xu

  • 1VCU Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298-0566, USA
  • 2Center for the Study of Biological Complexity of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
  • 3Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
  • Correspondence
    Ping Xu pxu{at}vcu.edu

    • Microbiology 2014; 160(Pt 2):307–315 · https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.071688-0

    View at publisher PubMed

    Abstract

    Streptococcus sanguinis is a Gram-positive bacterium that is indigenous to the oral cavity. S. sanguinis, a primary colonizer of the oral cavity, serves as a tether for the attachment of other oral pathogens. The colonization of microbes on the tooth surface forms dental plaque, which can lead to the onset of periodontal disease. We examined a comprehensive mutant library to identify genes related to cellular chain length and morphology using phase-contrast microscopy. A number of hypothetical genes related to the cellular chain length were identified in this study. Genes related to the cellular chain length were analysed along with clusters of orthologous groups (COG) for gene functions. It was discovered that the highest proportion of COG functions related to cellular chain length was ‘cell division and chromosome separation’. However, different COG functions were also found to be related with altered cellular chain length. This suggested that different genes related with multiple mechanisms contribute to the cellular chain length in S. sanguinis SK36.

    • A supplementary table is available with the online version of this paper.

    • Edited by: G. Thomas

    This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

    Abbreviations:
    COG
    cluster of orthologous groups
    KEGG
    Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes
    SEM
    scanning electron microscopy
    TCS
    two-component system