Occurrence and repair of alkylating stress in the intracellular pathogen Brucella abortus

Abstract

AbstractIt is assumed that intracellular pathogenic bacteria have to cope with DNA alkylating stress within host cells. Here we use single-cell reporter systems to show that the pathogenBrucella abortusdoes encounter alkylating stress during the first hours of macrophage infection. Genes encoding direct repair and base-excision repair pathways are required byB. abortusto face this stress in vitro and in a mouse infection model. Among these genes,ogtis found to be under the control of the conserved cell-cycle transcription factor GcrA. Our results highlight that the control of DNA repair inB. abortusdisplays distinct features that are not present in model organisms such asEscherichia coli.