Abstract:
The membrane proteins are critical to substrate protein secretion in VII secretion system existing in
Streptococcus agalactiae. In this study, we constructed the membrane proteins knockout vectors with chloramphenicol tag including pSET4s-Δ
essA, pSET4s-Δ
essB and pSET4s-Δ
essC, and after the homologous recombination, we screened the mutant
S. agalactiae Δ
essA, Δ
essB and Δ
essC via PCR assays. Based on the growth curve analysis,
S. agalactiae Δ
essA, Δ
essB and Δ
essC strains showed significantly slower growth process than the wild type strain (WT). Δ
essA and Δ
essB strains had significant difference in early stage of growth compared with WT strain (
P<0.01). According to the secretion product analysis of ESAT6 protein,
S. agalactiae Δ
essA, Δ
essB and Δ
essC strains showed significantly lower ESAT6 product than WT (
P<0.01). According to challenge test analysis, the deletion of
essA,
essB or
essC gene significantly reduced virulence of
S. agalactiae Δ
essA, Δ
essB and Δ
essC compared with WT (
P<0.01). The results suggest that essA, essB and essC proteins are important component membrane proteins of VII secretion system in
S.
agalactiae, and these genes deletions cause ESAT6 mRNA expression and virulence decline.