The 94th Annual Meeting of Japanese Society for Bacteriology

Presentation information

On-demand Presentation

3 Microbial Structure and Physiology

[ODP3C] c. Others

[ODP-036] Existence of extracellular DNA in pathogenic mycobacteria and its role in mycobacterial physiology

○Aleksandr Vladimirovich Ilinov1,2, Amina Kaboso Shaban1, Mariko Hakamata1, Akihito Nishiyama1, Yuriko Ozeki1, Yukari Fukusima3, Chie Nakajima3, Yoshitaka Tateishi1, Yasuhiko Suzuki3, Sohkichi Matsumoto1 (1Dept. Bacteriol., Sch. Med. Niigata Univ., 2Dept. General Surgery, Krasnoyarsk Med. Univ., 3Division Bioresources, Hokkaido Univ. Research Center for Zoonosis Control)

Our flow cytometry analysis suggested the presence of extracellular DNA (eDNA) in some pathogenic strains of mycobacteria including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The destruction of eDNA reduces of mycobacterial growth and enhanced susceptibility to antibiotics, suggesting their important role in mycobacterial survival and drug resistance. Whole DNA comparison by NSG revealed eDNA are almost identical with genomic DNA, suggesting most of eDNA comes from dead bacteria. However interestingly we also found specific region of the genome is accumulated in eDNA, indicating some genomic region are released in an active manner. Our data suggest existence of eDNA on mycobacteria and its importance in mycobacterial physiology.