This was approximately 2-fold

lower than that reached in cells cultured selleckchem without free GlcNAc only. This suggests that cells cultured in the absence of free GlcNAc with yeastolate exhausted the residual free GlcNAc and/or GlcNAc oligomers present in yeastolate before declining in density. A second exponential phase was observed in the culture without GlcNAc and yeastolate beginning at 266 hours, reaching a peak cell density of 3.0 × 107 cells ml-1 at 434 hours before entering stationary phase. Furthermore, when chitobiose was added to cells cultured without GlcNAc and yeastolate a single exponential phase was observed, though the growth rate was slightly reduced. Taken together, these data suggest that the source of GlcNAc in the second exponential phase is due to components Go6983 manufacturer in BSK-II other than yeastolate. Figure 8 Growth of B. burgdorferi strain B31-A in BSK-II without GlcNAc and yeastolate, and supplemented with 150 μM chitobiose. Late-log phase cells were diluted to 1.0 × 105 cells ml-1 in the appropriate medium (closed circle, 1.5 mM GlcNAc, with Yeastolate; open circle, without GlcNAc, with Yeastolate; open

triangle, without GlcNAc, without Yeastolate; closed triangle, without GlcNAc, without Yeastolate, with 150 μM chitobiose), incubated at 33°C, and enumerated daily as described in the Methods. This is a representative experiment that was repeated three times. Discussion In the selleck screening library present study we evaluated the role of RpoS and RpoN on biphasic growth and chitobiose utilization in B. burgdorferi cells cultured in the absence of free GlcNAc. RpoS and RpoN are the only two alternative sigma

factors encoded by B. burgdorferi, and have been shown to play key roles in the regulation of genes necessary for colonization of both the tick vector and mammalian host [17–19, 29]. A previous report demonstrated that biphasic growth in a medium lacking free GlcNAc is dependent on chbC expression, as chbC transcript levels in wild-type cells were increased during the second exponential phase [10]. We added to those results here by demonstrating that RpoS in the B31-A background regulates biphasic growth, as initiation of the second exponential phase was delayed by more than 200 h in the rpoS Monoiodotyrosine mutant when compared to the wild type and rpoS complemented mutant (Figs. 1 and 4A–C). Our results also suggest the delay in the rpoS mutant is due, at least in part, to its inability to up regulate chbC before 340 h during GlcNAc starvation (Fig. 3). In contrast, chbC transcript levels increased in the wild type and rpoS complemented mutant, corresponding to the initiation of a second exponential phase in these strains (Fig. 3). Taken together, these results confirm the requirement for chbC expression during growth in the second exponential phase [10], and suggest that RpoS regulates biphasic growth in media lacking free GlcNAc through regulation of chbC transcription.