(27ca) Investigation of Interaction of Stress Response, Virulence, and Antibiotic Resistance in Listeria Monocytogenes through Protein Network Analysis

Listeria monocytogenes is a deadly and costly foodborne pathogen with a high fatality rate. It can survive under various stress conditions and the treatment of commonly used antibiotics. It is thus necessary to investigate the coordination of mechanisms of stress response, virulence, and antibiotic resistance in L. monocytogenes. In this work, a systems biology pipeline was developed and used to create individual and combined protein interaction networks for stress response, virulence, and antimicrobial resistance for L. monocytogenes based on proteins from a public clinical database. These networks were visualized and analyzed to identify highly interconnected nodes within the individual and combined networks. Across the 3 individual networks, 28 unique proteins were identified as highly interconnected proteins, all of which serve as potential targets for new strategies to combat L. monocytogenes. Five of the 28 proteins are highly interconnected within multiple networks. These proteins are the most promising targets to improve food preservation methods and develop new treatments to combat Listeria monocytogenes contamination and infection.