AUTHOR=Riedel Carolin , Förstner Konrad U. , Püning Christoph , Alter Thomas , Sharma Cynthia M. , Gölz Greta 

TITLE=Differences in the Transcriptomic Response of Campylobacter coli and Campylobacter lari to Heat Stress

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.00523

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2020.00523

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p><italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. are one of the most important food-borne pathogens, which are quite susceptible to environmental or technological stressors compared to other zoonotic bacteria. This might be due to the lack of many stress response mechanisms described in other bacteria. Nevertheless, <italic>Campylobacter</italic> is able to survive in the environment and food products. Although some aspects of the heat stress response in <italic>Campylobacter jejuni</italic> are already known, information about the stress response in other <italic>Campylobacter</italic> species are still scarce. In this study, the stress response of <italic>Campylobacter coli</italic> and <italic>Campylobacter lari</italic> to elevated temperatures (46°C) was investigated by survival assays and whole transcriptome analysis. None of the strains survived at 46°C for more than 8 h and approximately 20% of the genes of <italic>C. coli</italic> RM2228 and <italic>C. lari</italic> RM2100 were differentially expressed. The transcriptomic profiles showed enhanced gene expression of several chaperones like <italic>dnaK</italic>, <italic>groES</italic>, <italic>groEL</italic>, and <italic>clpB</italic> in both strains, indicating a general involvement in the heat stress response within the <italic>Campylobacter</italic> species. However, the pronounced differences in the expression pattern between <italic>C. coli</italic> and <italic>C. lari</italic> suggest that stress response mechanisms described for one <italic>Campylobacter</italic> species might be not necessarily transferable to other <italic>Campylobacter</italic> species.</p>