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6 - Evasion of antibody responses: Bacterial phase variation

from Part II - Evasion of humoral immunity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2009

By
Nigel J. Saunders
Edited by
Brian Henderson  and
Petra C. F. Oyston
Nigel J. Saunders
Affiliation:
Molecular Infectious Diseases Group, Institute of Molecular, Medicine University of Oxford, Headington, OX3 9DS, UK
Brian Henderson
Affiliation:
University College London
Petra C. F. Oyston
Affiliation:
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Salisbury
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The generation of diversity within bacterial populations is important in the evolution and development of bacterial species and also in the adaptability of bacteria to their changing environments. Diversity is generated by a combination of programmed and random events that occur at different rates and confer different types of variability on the population. At one extreme there are random point mutations that occur throughout the coding and intergenic sequences that alter the expression, structure, and function of bacterial components. At the other extreme, there are regulated responses that allow bacteria to control the expression of genes whenever the appropriate environmental conditions are encountered. Between these there is a variety of processes that adds to the capacity of a population to diversify, including the presence and movement of insertion sequences that affect expression, mobile genetic elements that can move within and between populations, and the horizontal transfer of DNA between individual bacteria. One process that lies between the mutations that occur randomly throughout the genome and the programmed regulation of environmentally responsive genes is phase variation. This process involves alterations in the cell at the level of DNA but in a way that generates predictable and predetermined adaptability for the bacterial population.

SECTION 1: PHASE VARIATION, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND HOW IT WORKS

Phase variation has been recognised as a process associated with diversification since the early days of medical bacteriology (Andrewes, 1922).

Type
Chapter
Information
Bacterial Evasion of Host Immune Responses , pp. 103 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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