We aim to explore the diversity of transcriptome profiles between L. monocytogenes isolates.. Listeria monocytogenes transcriptomics

Pathogenicity of an opportunistic pathogen like Listeria monocytogenes depends on several factors such as ability to survive in the gastrointestinal track and expression of virulence factors and thus involves complex genetic regulations. Accumulated data suggest high heterogeneity in virulence potentials between L. monocytogenes isolates which correlate, to some extent, with phylogeny at both lineage and clonal complex levels. However, little is known about transcriptome diversity in comparison to the copious data on intraspecific genome diversity. The current study aims to characterize the transcriptome profiles of isolates belonging to the two major phylogenetic lineages, grown in an optimal in vitro culture condition. For this purpose, we sequence the genomes to build a comprehensive reference that covers nucleotide polymorphisms between the isolates.