Identification of proteins determining the virulence of Listeria monocytogenes using bioinformation analysis

The postgenomic stage of biotechnology allows bioinformation approaches to be used for revealing previously unknown factors participating in different processes of the vital the functions of organisms. In this work, bioinformation approaches have been applied to the analysis of factors involved in the virulence of gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Several open reading frames (ORF) have been identified in the L. monocytogenes genome, which encode proteins with a high level of homology to bacterial peptidases and meet the developed criteria. The effect of ORFs on virulence has been proved experimentally by intravenous infection of mice with the constructed L. monocytogenes strains carrying site-specific insertion mutations in the studied genes. The obtained strains have been characterized by growth rate, morphology, and production of surface proteins.