Tr. Licht et al., Effect of pheromone induction on transfer of the Enterococcus faecalis plasmid pCF10 in intestinal mucus ex vivo, FEMS MICROB, 204(2), 2001, pp. 305-309
The effect of synthetic sex pheromone on pheromone-inducible conjugation be
tween the isogenic Enterococcus faecalis strains OG1RF and OG1SS was invest
igated in (i) Todd-Hewitt broth medium and (ii) intestinal mucus isolated f
rom germ-free rats. In broth, the presence of synthetic pheromone cCF10 had
no detectable effect on the transfer kinetics observed for the tetracyclin
e resistance encoding plasmid pCF10. In MUCUS, presence of the same pheromo
ne significantly increased the transfer efficiency observed during the firs
t 2 h of conjugation, while the effect was less pronounced later in the exp
eriment. We suggest that due to differences in diffusion rates and medium-b
inding of the pheromones, the effect of the synthetic cCF10 was immediately
dominated by the effect of pheromones produced by the recipient E. faecali
s strain in broth, while this happened later in mucus. (C) 2001 Federation
of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. A
ll rights reserved.