THE SALMONELLA-TYPHIMURIUM INVASION GENES INVF AND INVG ENCODE HOMOLOGS OF THE ARAC AND PULD FAMILY OF PROTEINS

We have identified two novel Salmonella typhimurium. genes, invF and invG, which are required for the efficient entry of these organisms into cultured epithelial cells. invF and invG are located immediately upstream of invE, a previously identified gene also required for Salmonella entry. Non-polar mutations in these genes rendered S. typhimurium severely deficient for entry into cultured epithelial cells. The nucleotide sequences of invF and invG indicated that these genes encode polypeptides with predicted molecular weights of 24 373 and 62 275, respectively. Proteins of similar sizes were observed when invF and invG were expressed in a bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase-based expression system. Comparison of the predicted sequence of InvF with translated sequences in the existing databases indicated that this protein is homologous to members of the AraC family of prokaryotic transcription regulators. However, mutations in invF did not significantly affect the expression of other members of the inv locus, InvG was found to be homologous to members of the Pulp family of specialized translocases. This homology suggests that InvG may be necessary for the export of invasion-related determinants or involved in the assembly of a supramolecular structure that promotes entry.