Essential role of Salmonella Enteritidis DNA adenine methylase in infected macrophages

Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) is one of the major foodborne zoonotic pathogens of worldwide importance. As an crucial DNA methylation, DNA adenine methylase modulates bacterial gene expression through N-6 methylation of adenosine residues in GATC sites. While a broad range of processes are modulated by Dam, such as DNA replication and mismatch repair, chromosome segregation, surface protein expression, and transcription of insertion element, lack of Dam does not impair bacterial viability. In this study, wild type SE strain C50336, dam deletion mutant strain, and dam overexpression strain were used to infect mouse macrophage cell line J774A.1. The RNA-seq assay was then performed.