ArticleJournal of bacteriology2012
Spontaneous excision of the O-polysaccharide wbkA glycosyltranferase gene is a cause of dissociation of smooth to rough Brucella colonies.
Article in Journal of bacteriology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- A critical review of diagnostic methods for camel brucellosis.Veterinary and animal science · 2026Review
- Biological characteristics, human cell interaction mechanisms, and differential clinical outcomes of infection by Brucella melitensis, Brucella abortus, Brucella suis, and Brucella canis.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Isolation of Brucella suis from cattle in India: whole genome analysis unravels potential for zoonotic transmission.Brazilian journal of microbiology : [publication of the Brazilian Society for Microbiology] · 2025Article
- Combination ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Facing the Human and Animal Brucellosis Conundrums: The Forgotten Lessons.Microorganisms · 2022Article
- Genome Sequencing and Comparative Genomics of Indian Isolates ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- When the Going Gets Rough: The Significance ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2021Review
- Periplasmic protein EipA determines envelope stress resistance and virulence in Brucella abortus.Molecular microbiology · 2019Article
- Review
- Structural Studies of Lipopolysaccharide-defective Mutants from Brucella melitensis Identify a Core Oligosaccharide Critical in Virulence.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2016Article
- Article
- Article
- Smooth to Rough Dissociation in Brucella: The Missing Link to Virulence.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2015Article
- Brucella dissociation is essential for macrophage egress and bacterial dissemination.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2014Article
- Deletion of the GI-2 integrase and the wbkA flanking transposase improves the stability of Brucella melitensis Rev 1 vaccine.Veterinary research · 2013Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The brucellae are Gram-negative pathogens that cause brucellosis, a zoonosis of worldwide importance. The genus Brucella includes smooth and rough species that differ in that they carry smooth and rough lipopolysaccharides, respectively. Brucella abortus, B. melitensis, and B. suis are typical smooth species. However, these smooth brucellae dissociate into rough mutants devoid of the lipopolysaccharide O-polysaccharide, a major antigen and a virulence determinant encoded in regions wbo (included in genomic island-2) and wbk. We demonstrate here the occurrence of spontaneous recombination events in those three Brucella species leading to the deletion of a 5.5-kb fragment carrying the wbkA glycosyltranferase gene and to the appearance of rough mutants. Analysis of the recombination intermediates suggested homologous recombination between the ISBm1 insertion sequences flanking wbkA as the mechanism generating the deletion. Excision of wbkA was reduced but not abrogated in a recA-deficient mutant, showing the existence of both RecA-dependent and -independent processes. Although the involvement of the ISBm1 copies flanking wbkA suggested a transpositional event, the predicted transpositional joint could not be detected. This absence of detectable transposition was consistent with the presence of polymorphism in the inverted repeats of one of the ISBm1 copies. The spontaneous excision of wbkA represents a novel dissociation mechanism of smooth brucellae that adds to the previously described excision of genomic island-2. This ISBm1-mediated wbkA excision and the different %GC levels of the excised fragment and of other wbk genes suggest that the Brucella wbk locus is the result of at least two horizontal acquisition events.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.