FIG 7.

Loss of Hfq causes enhanced motility. (A) Motility of the C. sakazakii strains harboring the pBAD18 control plasmid or the complementation plasmid pHFQ-A on semisolid agar plates. The strains were cultured on semisolid agar plates containing 1.33 mM arabinose at 37°C, and motility was monitored. The image is representative of several experiments. (B) Morphology of wild-type and Δhfq (SK003) strains imaged by transmission electron microscopy. (C) qRT-PCR of fliA, flgK, fliC, and flhC transcripts from WT (SK001) and Δhfq (SK005) strains and Δhfq harboring pHFQ (SK007). To obtain the expression level relative to that of the WT on the y axis, the mRNA level of each gene was divided by the mRNA level of the 16S rRNA. The mRNA expression values in strains SK005 and SK007 were further normalized to the transcription levels of the wild type. The bars represent means and SEM from independent experiments performed in triplicate. The data are representative of 3 independent experiments.