The compound, fluoro-phenyl-styrene-sulfonamide (FPSS), is safe for mammals but interrupts a mechanism in Listeria that controls genes that are expressed when the bacterium experiences a rapid change in its environment.
The discovery, reported in mBio, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, offers new directions for basic research on how L. monocytogenes and other bacteria survive in a wide range of rapidly changing hostile conditions, from fluctuating temperatures to the low pH levels found in the human stomach.
