Abstract
The food-borne pathogenic bacteria Listeria monocytogenes
can form biofilms on various surfaces including food-processing
equipment. Biofilms offer survival benefits to the organisms
entrapped against environmental insults. Moreover,
the σB transcription factor of L. monocytogenes plays an important
role in its survival under various stress conditions.
In this study, we evaluated whether σB contributes to biofilm
formation when L. monocytogenes is grown under various
temperatures and media. When the wild-type strain was
grown under static biofilm culture below ambient temperature
(15°C) for 72 h, the difference in viable cell number (in
both planktonic and biofilm cells) between the wild-type
and ΔsigB mutant increased by adding NaCl to BHI broth
(9% salt BHI > 6% salt BHI > BHI, w/v), and the specific activity
of β-galactosidase was highly induced in the wild-type
strain grown in 6% salt containing BHI broth. Furthermore,
we measured surface-adhered biofilm forming ability using
the crystal violet staining method. The wild-type strain formed
a four times larger biofilm than that of the ΔsigB mutant in
6% salt-BHI medium at 15°C over a 72 h incubation and also
showed the highest level of β-galactosidase specific activity.
However, both the wild-type and ΔsigB mutant L. monocytogenes
were defective for forming a biofilm in 9% salt-BHI
medium at 15°C. Our results suggest that σB plays an enhanced
role in surface-adhered biofilm formation when L.
monocytogenes encounters dual stress conditions, such as
6% NaCl and low temperature.
Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by

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