The marine bacterium causes food-borne diseases, which may lead to life-threatening septicemia in some individuals. Therefore, identifying virulence factors in is of high priority. We performed a transcriptome analysis on after infection of human intestinal HT29-methotrexate cells and found induction of, encoding a putative phospholipase, PlpA. Bioinformatics, biochemical, and genetic analyses demonstrated thatPlpA is a phospholipase A secreted in a type II secretion system-dependent manner. Compared with the wild type, the mutant exhibited reduced mortality, systemic infection, and inflammation in mice as well as low cytotoxicity toward the human epithelial INT-407 cells. Moreover, mutation attenuated the release of actin and cytosolic cyclophilin A from INT-407 cells, indicating that PlpA is a virulence factor essential for causing lysis and necrotic death of the epithelial cells. transcription was growth phase-dependent, reaching maximum levels during the early stationary phase. Also, transcription factor HlyU and cAMP receptor protein (CRP) mediate additive activation and host-dependent induction of Molecular biological analyses revealed that expression is controlled via the promoter, P , and that HlyU and CRP directly bind to P upstream sequences. Taken together, this study demonstrated that PlpA is a type II secretion system-dependent secretory phospholipase A regulated by HlyU and CRP and is essential for the pathogenicity of .
Pathogenic Vibrio species cause diseases in diverse marine animals reared in aquaculture. Since their pathogenesis, persistence, and survival in marine environments are regulated by quorum sensing (QS), QS interference has attracted attention as a means to control these bacteria in aquatic settings. A few QS inhibitors of Vibrio species have been reported, but detailed molecular mechanisms are lacking. Here, we identified a novel, potent, and selective Vibrio QS inhibitor, named QStatin [1-(5-bromothiophene-2-sulfonyl)-1H-pyrazole], which affects Vibrio harveyi LuxR homologues, the well-conserved master transcriptional regulators for QS in Vibrio species. Crystallographic and biochemical analyses showed that QStatin binds tightly to a putative ligand-binding pocket in SmcR, the LuxR homologue in V. vulnificus, and changes the flexibility of the protein, thereby altering its transcription regulatory activity. Transcriptome analysis revealed that QStatin results in SmcR dysfunction, affecting the expression of SmcR regulon required for virulence, motility/chemotaxis, and biofilm dynamics. Notably, QStatin attenuated representative QS-regulated phenotypes in various Vibrio species, including virulence against the brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana). Together, these results provide molecular insights into the mechanism of action of an effective, sustainable QS inhibitor that is less susceptible to resistance than other antimicrobial agents and useful in controlling the virulence of Vibrio species in aquacultures.
VvhA, a virulent factor of Vibrio (V.) vulnificus, induces acute cell death in a destructive manner. Autophagy plays an important role in cell death, but the functional role of VvhA in autophagy-related cell death has not been elucidated yet. We found that rVvhA significantly increased LC3 puncta formation and autophagic flux in promoting the cell death of human intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cells. The cell death induced by rVvhA was independent of lysosomal permeabilizaton and caspase activation. rVvhA induced rapid phosphorylation of c-Src in the membrane lipid raft, which resulted in an increased interaction between lipid raft molecule caveolin-1 and NADPH oxidase (NOX) complex Rac1 for ROS production. NOX-mediated ROS signaling induced by rVvhA increased the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) which are required for mRNA expression of Atg5 and Atg16L1 involved in autophagosome formation. In an in vivo model, VvhA increased autophagy activation and paracellular permeabilization in intestinal epithelium. Collectively, the results here show that VvhA plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis and dissemination of V. vulnificus by autophagy upregulation, through the lipid raft-mediated c-Src/NOX signaling pathway and ERK/eIF2α activation.
For successful infection of their hosts, pathogenic bacteria recognize host-derived signals that induce the expression of virulence factors in a spatiotemporal manner. The fulminating food-borne pathogen Vibrio vulnificus produces a cytolysin/hemolysin protein encoded by the vvhBA operon, which is a virulence factor preferentially expressed upon exposure to murine blood and macrophages. The Fe-S cluster containing transcriptional regulator IscR activates the vvhBA operon in response to nitrosative stress and iron starvation, during which the cellular IscR protein level increases. Here, electrophoretic mobility shift and DNase I protection assays revealed that IscR directly binds downstream of the vvhBA promoter PvvhBA, which is unusual for a positive regulator. We found that in addition to IscR, the transcriptional regulator HlyU activates vvhBA transcription by directly binding upstream of PvvhBA, whereas the histone-like nucleoid-structuring protein (H-NS) represses vvhBA by extensively binding to both downstream and upstream regions of its promoter. Of note, the binding sites of IscR and HlyU overlapped with those of H-NS. We further substantiated that IscR and HlyU outcompete H-NS for binding to the PvvhBA regulatory region, resulting in the release of H-NS repression and vvhBA induction. We conclude that concurrent antirepression by IscR and HlyU at regions both downstream and upstream of PvvhBA provides V. vulnificus with the means of integrating host-derived signal(s) such as nitrosative stress and iron starvation for precise regulation of vvhBA transcription, thereby enabling successful host infection.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.