# IMMUNODEFICIENCY AND SALMONELLA SUSCEPTIBILITY

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 1988 · $181,541

## Abstract

It is estimated that as many as 100,000 deaths occur in the United States
each year as a result of gram-negative infections.  World wide these
organisms are a leading cause of death by infectious disease.  The studies
described in this grant focus on mouse infections with Salmonella
typhimurium which serves as a mouse model for human typhoid.  The
pathogenesis of facultative intracellular parasites such as S. typhimurium
is complex because the organism's growth in vivo can be affected by both
extracellular and intracellular mechanisms of resistance.

One approach that can aid in the delineation of mechanisms involved in the
resistance to microbial infections is to identify variant mouse genes that
affect pathogenesis.  Understanding the function of these genes should
allow us to understand much about how some mice resist infection.  Although
there appear to be a number of mouse salmonella resistance loci, only a few
have been described because of complications that arise in genetic analyses
where more than one locus is involved.

Over the past couple of years, we have been developing what we hope will be
an approach that should facilitate the identification of individual
salmonella resistance genes.  We are preparing salmonella strains isogenic
for single virulence genes.  By examining the difference in virulence of
one such partially isogenic pair of strains in mice, we have been able to
identify mice carrying the resistant and susceptible Ity alleles with more
clarity than was possible in the past.  This same variant salmonella strain
also appears to have allowed us to identify a new salmonella resistance
locus linked to the cdm locus of the mouse.  We have also produced a
salmonella strain that lacks a gene necessary for LT2 salmonella to cause
disease in the ultrasusceptible BSVR mice.  By using salmonella congenic
for these virulence genes we should also be able to examine the virulence
mechanisms of the salmonella that are counteracted by the specific mouse
resistance genes they help to identify.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3126519
- **Project number:** 5R01AI015986-09
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **SAM.gov UEI:** YND4PLMC9AN7
- **Principal Investigator:** David E Briles
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1988
- **Award amount:** $181,541
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1979-08-01 → 1989-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3126519

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3126519, IMMUNODEFICIENCY AND SALMONELLA SUSCEPTIBILITY (5R01AI015986-09). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3126519. Licensed CC0.

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