Global transcriptional regulation by cell-free supernatant of Salmonella Typhimurium peptide transporter mutant leads to inhibition of intra-species biofilm initiation

Abstract

Salmonella is a genus of widely spread Gram negative, facultative anaerobic bacteria, which is known to cause ¼th of diarrheal morbidity and mortality globally. It causes typhoid fever and gastroenteritis by gaining access to the host gut through contaminated food and water. Salmonella utilizes its biofilm lifestyle to strongly resist antibiotics and persist in the host. Although biofilm removal or dispersal has been studied widely, the inhibition of the initiation of Salmonella biofilm remains elusive. This study was conducted to determine the anti-biofilm property of the cell-free supernatant obtained from a carbon-starvation inducible proline peptide transporter mutant (ΔyjiY) strain. Our study shows that Salmonella ΔyjiY culture supernatant primarily inhibits biofilm initiation by regulating biofilm-associated transcriptional network. This work demonstrates that highly abundant proteases such as HslV and GrpE cleave the protein aggregates, whereas global transcription regulators H-NS, FlgM regulate expression of SPIs and flagellar genes. Relatively low abundances of flavoredoxin, glutaredoxin, thiol peroxidase etc. leads to accumulation of ROS within the biofilm, and subsequent toxicity. This work further suggests that targeting these oxidative stress relieving proteins might be a good druggable choice to reduce Salmonella biofilm.