Changes in membrane fatty acids and murein composition of Bacillus cereus and Salmonella Typhi induced by gamma irradiation treatment.

Samia Ayari (1, 2) , Dominic Dussault (3) , Mathieu Millette (3, 4) , Mokhtar Hamdi (1) , Monique Lacroix (3)

1 INSAT - National Institute for Applied Sciences and Technologies
2 CNSTN - National Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies
3 INRS-IAF - Institut Armand Frappier
4 Bio-K+ International Inc.

This present study was carried out to evaluate the effects of gamma irradiation on the fatty acids (FA) and mureins composition of two different radiotolerant bacteria. Bacillus cereus LSPQ 2872 and Salmonella Typhi ATCC 19430 were used for this study. The bacterial strains were treated with a sublethal radiation dose of 1kGy to cause a cellular damage. Gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis were performed to demonstrate respectively the modification of the FA composition and the changes in muropeptide profile. Results obtained show, for both bacteria, that this treatment had a significant effect (P< or =0.05) on the FA content with an increase of unsaturated FA percentage. Substantial changes were also noticed for the relative percentage and the number of the muropeptides. This study represents one of the few to demonstrate the modifications on bacterial membrane as a cellular response to survive the ionising radiation stress.

Keywords: Gamma irradiation; Fatty acids; Muropeptides; Radiotolerance; Bacillus cereus; Salmonella Typhi

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Human health and pathology; Infectious diseases

Samia Ayari, Dominic Dussault, Mathieu Millette, Mokhtar Hamdi, Monique Lacroix. Changes in membrane fatty acids and murein composition of Bacillus cereus and Salmonella Typhi induced by gamma irradiation treatment.. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 2009, 135 (1), pp.1-6. ⟨10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2009.07.012⟩. ⟨pasteur-00819965⟩