Full Length Research Paper

Deletion of the yhdT gene of Bacillus subtilis and its influence on hemolysis

Jie Liu*, Qiong Zhang and Chunhong Fang

College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi Province, China.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: liujie2003@hotmail.com.  Tel: +8613484549186. Fax: +86 29 87092262.

Accepted 9 September, 2010

   Abstract

Bacillus subtilis is commonly used as a probiotic. Recently, some metabolites of B. subtilis were reported to cause hemolysis; however, the mechanism by which these metabolites cause hemolysis remains to be clarified. In this study, we cloned the hemolysis-associated gene yhdT and constructed a yhdT gene-deletion mutant of the B. subtilis 224 strain. Further, we determined the hemolytic activity of the culture supernatant of the yhdT gene-deletion mutant and found that the hemolytic activity of the yhdT gene-deletion mutant was lower than that of wild-type B. subtilis 224. Thus, our results indicate that the yhdT gene contributes to the hemolytic activity of B. subtilis 224.

Key words: Bacillus subtilis, yhdT gene, hemolysis.