Listeria monocytogenes gene essentiality under laboratory conditions and during macrophage infection

The Gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes occurs widespread in the environment and infects humans when ingested along with contaminated food. Such infections are particularly dangerous for risk group patients, for whom they represent a life-threatening disease. To invent novel strategies to control contamination and disease, it is important to identify those cellular processes that maintain pathogen growth in- and outside the host. We here have applied transposon insertion sequencing (Tn-Seq) to L. monocytogenes for the identification of such processes on a genome-wide scale.