title: Adherence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa elastase deficient mutant.
abstract: Pseudomonas aeruginosa produces several extracellular substances such as enzymes and toxins which seem to contribute to its pathogenicity. In particular, alkaline protease and elastase production seems to affect bacterial adherence. Aim of this study was to isolate an elastase deficient mutant of P. aeruginosa and to demonstrate a possible correlation between enzyme production and adherence to WEHI cells. Mutant strain showed a significant reduction of elastase and protease alkaline activity, as the decrease of absorbance values demonstrate. Furthermore the adherence to WEHI cells of mutant strain was strongly reduced with respect to the wild strain. Our results prove that proteolytic enzymes play an important role in adherence, probably modifying the cell surfaces and so enhancing adherence.
authors.affiliation: II Cattedra di Microbiologia Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trancassini
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Ghezzi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Magni
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nazzari
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Brenciaglia
mesh_terms: D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D002460:Cell Line; D009154:Mutation; D010196:Pancreatic Elastase / Q000378:metabolism*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000201:enzymology / Q000502:physiology*; D012697:Serine Endopeptidases / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D012697:Serine Endopeptidases; D010196:Pancreatic Elastase; C032923:microbial serine proteinases