Question

How can one experimentally determine that the wildtype and mutant of a bacteria internalize the cell by two different pathways?

The bacteria being studied is Arcanobacterium haemolyticum which is a gram positive, non motile rod that causes pharyngitis and other imfections. This bacteria expresses an unusual phospholipase which is proposed to promote bacterial pathogenesis. The wildtype is the normal strain and the mutant has had the pld gene removed. What experiment with controls can be set up to determine that the two strains internalize via different pathways and what are the pathways?

Answer 1

To determine the way of internalizing a cell by the two bacteria you have to plan an experiment in which you knock out the way in which this bacteria produces the internalization to the cell, and a wild type cell for the two cases.

After this you check in the results if the knocked out bacteria can still enter the cell, it uses another way, if not that was the pathway to enter.

In the case of the mutant bacteria, you can eliminate that phospholipase, and a wild type of this mutant bacteria without changes as a control, to check if this phospholipase is involved in the pathway to enter the cell.