Comparative Transcriptomics of Outbreak Associated Salmonella enterica Isolates
Whether through forming sanitation-resistant biofilms or developing enhanced tolerance to antimicrobials and sanitizers or even heat, foodborne pathogens adapt to and survive the stresses of food processing and sanitation program leading to consumer illnesses. Understanding bacterial pathogens stress tolerance strategies and persistence capabilities and developing new methods to foil them is crucial to reducing the burden of foodborne illness. Previous research indicated that several isolates from an outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg in poultry products had increased stress tolerance and that this was associated with enhanced stress tolerance gene expression in stationary phase. We hypothesized that enhanced stress tolerance may play a key role in outbreaks of salmonellosis and that this may be detectable via gene expression analysis in stationary phase. This project contains the RNA-sequencing raw reads of six stationary-phase Salmonella enterica isolates, with three biological replicates per isolate.