Testing the specificity of the pBAD arabinose reporter

Abstract: The project highlights Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm)'s ability to metabolize simple sugars released from dead commensal bacteria, by using the pBAD (araBAD promoter) system as a reporter of L-arabinose availability. Using bioinformatics and homology of conserved L-arabinose transporter genes shared in Escherichia coli K12 (E. coli) and S. Tm, we aimed to create a S. Tm mutant strain unable to obtain L-arabinose from it environment. During the projects course of time it was discovered that L-arabinose transporters are not a shared gene trait between E. coli and S. Tm, and that putative L-arabinose transporter orthologues may exists in the S. Tm genome.