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The Effects Of Motility And Chemotaxis On Vibrio Cholerae Colonization In Zebrafish, Paula Dietz

Wayne State University Theses

Vibrio cholerae, the cause of the diarrheal disease cholera, is a gram-negative, curved rod-shaped bacterium, with a single polar flagellum. V. cholerae is naturally found in aquatic environments and is highly motile. When it enters a human host, V. cholerae uses flagellar motility to pass through the stomach and into the small intestine. Once in the small intestine, motility genes are downregulated and virulence gene expression is upregulated. V. cholerae motility and chemotaxis effects have not yet been studied in a zebrafish model, a natural host of this bacterium. We hypothesize that V. cholerae in frame deletions of vital motility …