pyogenes, the identification of a novel pheromone in related species of Streptococcus might pave the

way for deciphering a natural genetic transformation system in this bacterium [46]. Whether competence gene activation by ComX/σH is linked to the this website capacity of being transformable in these species, and under which conditions, remains to be determined. Effect of sigH on L. sakei survival No indication of another large adaptive response triggered by σLsa H could be deduced from the few other up-regulated genes distributed in different functional categories. We also searched for phenotypic effects linked to a putative role of σH on survival in stationary phase or after DNA damage. For that purpose, we constructed a sigH(nul) null mutant (see Methods) and compared the effect of overexpression or absence of σLsa H relative to WT strains on growth and stationary phase survival in MCD medium under aerobiosis, microaerobiosis MCC950 in vivo or anaerobiosis, as

well as on UV resistance. No changes in any of the above tests could be attributed to σH expression levels under the conditions tested (data not shown). Interestingly, all the strains revealed UV resistance, S3I-201 cell line since the fraction of each population killed by 254 nm irradiation was in the range of 0-5% at 60 J.m-2, 60-70% at 80 J.m-2, 95-98% at 100 J.m-2 and 99.5-99.9% at 120 J.m-2. This is to be compared to the reported 100% killing of Lactobacillus brevis exposed to 254 nm UV light at 70 J.m-2 [47]. Competition experiments in mixed cultures revealed no imbalance in growth or survival between the σH overproducing or σH deficient and WT strains in MCD medium (Figure 5). As MCD medium may not represent a usual environment for the bacterium, a meat-derived medium was tested for comparison of sigH(nul) and WT strains. L. sakei showed prolonged stationary phase survival in meat juice, where about one percent of the population was still alive after one month at 30°C (Figure 6). Inactivation of sigH brought no striking change to the phenotype. Figure 5 Effect of overexpression or deletion of sigH on viability

of L. sakei in mixed cultures with WT strain. Each pair of mutant and WT strains has been mixed after separate growth until an OD600 of 0.3, in MCD medium aminophylline at 30°C in microaerobiosis. Enumeration on appropriate agar plates allowed to distinguish WT from mutant strains. sigH(nul) mutant (black triangles) was mixed with WT strain 23 K (empty triangles). sigH(hy)* overexpression mutant (black circles) was mixed with sigH(wt)* strain (empty circles), and 30 μM CuSO4 was added to the culture. Curves are the mean of two independent experiments. Figure 6 Long-term viability of L. sakei in meat juice at 30°C. Curves are the mean of three independent experiments; error bars represent standard deviation (logarithmic scale). Conclusions This study gives further insight into the function of σH-family sigma factors from Firmicutes, whether they belong to sporulating or non-sporulating bacteria.