Effects of {alpha}-phosphoglucomutase deficiency on cell wall properties and fitness in Streptococcus gordonii

Département de Microbiologie Fondamentale, Bâtiment Biophore, Université de Lausanne, Quartier UNIL-Sorge, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Correspondence Vladimir Lazarevic vladimir.lazarevic{at}unil.ch Streptococcus gordonii -phosphoglucomutase, which converts glucose 6-phosphate to glucose 1-phosphate, is encoded by pgm . The pgm transcript is monocistronic and is initiated from a A -like promoter. Mutants with a gene disruption in pgm exhibited an altered cell wall muropeptide pattern and a lower teichoic acid content, and had reduced fitness both in vitro and in vivo . In vitro , the reduced fitness included reduced growth, reduced viability in the stationary phase and increased autolytic activity. In vivo , the pgm -deficient strain had a lower virulence in a rat model of experimental endocarditis. Abbreviations: PGM, -phosphoglucomutase; PSD, post-source decay; WTA, wall teichoic acid The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the nucleotide sequence of Streptococcus gordonii pgm reported in this paper is DQ234767.