The predicted amino acid sequence of the Salmonella typhimurium virulence gene mviAA(+) strongly indicates that MviA is a regulator protein of a previously unknown S. typhimurium response regulator family.

The Salmonella typhimurium virulence gene mviA+ has a predicted amino acid sequence with homology to the N-terminal 112-amino-acid sequence of response regulator proteins. A previously described mutant allele (mviA), which restores virulence to avirulent LT2 strains, was shown to contain a point mutation which would be predicted to cause a single amino acid change, V-102-->G (W. H. Benjamin, Jr., J. Yother, P. Hall, and D. E. Briles, J. Exp. Med. 1,74:1073-1083, 1991). A comparison of the nucleotide sequence of mviA+ with that of the Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhi genes revealed a high degree of conservation.