Campylobacter jejuni genes contributing to acid adaptation

In order to cause disease, the food- and water-borne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni must face the extreme acidity of the host stomach as well as cope with pH fluctuations in the intestine. In the present study, C. jejuni NCTC 11168 was grown under mild acidic conditions mimicking those encountered in the intestine. The resulting transcriptional profiles revealed how this bacterium fine-tunes gene expression in response to acid stress. This adaptation involves differential expression of respiratory pathways, induction of genes for phosphate transport and repression of energy generation and intermediary metabolism genes. Keywords: acid shock; dose response; transcriptional response to 3 mild-acidic pH growth conditions (pH6.5, pH 6.0 and pH5.0) Three two-condition experiments: (1) pH7.0 versus pH 6.5; (2) pH7.0 versus pH6.0; and (3) pH 7.0 versus pH 5.5. Two biological replicates per experiment and 3 technical replicates for each biological replicate