Molecular Characterization of Hemolysin Gene from a Pakistani Clinical Isolate of Vibrio cholerae

Abstract

Hemolysins comprise an important bacterial exotoxin family. The genome of Vibrio cholerae genome contains several hemolysin genes including thermolabile hemolysin which is thought to be the key virulence factor beside Cholera toxin. Molecular characterization of a thermolabile hemolysin gene from a V. cholerae clinical isolate (termed as “ThermH”) was carried out by PCR amplification followed by DNA sequencing. Alignment of hemolysin sequences revealed five single nucleotide polymorphisms in ThermH compared to Vibrio cholerae El Tor. These SNPs resulted in three missense mutations in the translated sequence of ThermH which might be helpful in genotyping of the V. cholerae. The sequence has been submitted to Genbank under the accession number FJ705057.