Illuminating the impact of plasmids to stress survival of Listeria monocytogenes

The overall goal of this project is to determine if plasmids confer advantages for survival under stress conditions Listeria monocytogenes is exposed to in food and food processing environments (FPEs).Objective 1: Determine the contribution of plasmids to survival of Listeria monocytogenes under different stress conditions relevant to food and FPEs.Objective 2: Determine which plasmid-encoded genes are responsible for better survival under selected stress conditions.Objective 3: Perform a large-scale survey of plasmids in sequenced Listeria monocytogenes strains.