Gene database of Salmonella enterica subsp. Typhimurium LT2

Salmonella
typhimurium is a Gram-negative, flagellated, motile
bacterium known to cause gastrointestinal disease in humans. Armed with two
pathogenicity islands of clusters of genes implicated in pathogenesis, S.
typhimurium is a formidable pathogen for which clinical microbiology labs
keep a constant lookout for in patients with diarrhoea symptoms. Being an
evolutionary relative of the well-studied Escherichia coli, major
questions remain on why S. typhimurium could amass two important
pathogenicity islands in its genome. Specifically, what are the circumstances
on which ancestral S. typhimurium acquired or evolved the two
pathogenicity islands? Knowledge of these evolutionary paths would expand our
understanding of how pathogen evolved from otherwise benign microbes, as well
as answer the question of whether pathogenic potential is an evolutionary
adaptive trait or phenotype endowed in the genome. This work sought to provide
basic information of the genetic repertoire of S. typhimurium LT2 by
parsing its annotated genome sequence from Genbank with an in-house MATLAB
software. Comprising gene name, gene function, and gene sequence, the resource
should be useful in a variety of host microbe studies seeking to elucidate how
the pathogen adapts to changing environmental and nutritional conditions in the
human gastrointestinal tract particularly with reference to changing dietary
habits of people around the world.