Photobacterium leiognathi forms a bioluminescent symbiosis with leiognathid fishes, colonizing the internal light organ of the fish and providing its host with light used in bioluminescence displays. Strains symbiotic with different species of the fish exhibit substantial phenotypic differences in symbiosis and in culture, including differences in 2-D PAGE protein patterns and profiles of indigenous plasmids. To determine if such differences might reflect a genetically based symbiont-strain/host-species specificity, we profiled the genomes of P. leiognathi strains from leiognathid fishes using PFGE. Individual strains from 10 species of leiognathid fishes exhibited substantial genomic polymorphism, with no obvious similarity among strains; these strains were nonetheless identified as P. leiognathi by 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Profiling of multiple strains from individual host specimens revealed an oligoclonal structure to the symbiont populations; typically one or two genomotypes dominated each population. However, analysis of multiple strains from multiple specimens of the same host species, to determine if the same strain types consistently colonize a host species, demonstrated substantial heterogeneity, with the same genomotype only rarely observed among the symbiont populations of different specimens of the same host species. Colonization of the leiognathid light organ to initiate the symbiosis therefore is likely to be oliogoclonal, and specificity of the P. leiognathi/leiognathid fish symbiosis apparently is maintained at the bacterial species level rather than at the level of individual, genomotypically defined strain types.
SummaryBordetella pertussis regulates expression of its virulence factors such as pertussis toxin (Ptx) via the bvg locus, which encodes a two-component system composed of a sensor protein, BvgS, and a transcription activator, BvgA. We used a ptx -lac fusion on the B. pertussis chromosome to analyse promoter activation by alteration of specific sequences upstream of and within the promoter. Our data demonstrate that a pair of heptanucleotide inverted repeats separated by a turn of the DNA helix within the upstream repeat region (centred around nucleotide ¹136.5) are crucial cis-activating elements, and probably represent the initial BvgA-binding site. In addition, we demonstrate that the sequence between these repeats and the promoter plays a role in activation. Our data are most consistent with a model of co-operative binding of BvgA dimers to this intervening region and interaction with RNA polymerase at the promoter to activate ptx transcription. In the core promoter region both the non-consensus 21 bp spacing and the specific sequence between the ¹35 and ¹10 elements are crucial for promoter activity.
Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough, regulates expression of many virulence factors via a two-component signal transduction system encoded by the bvgAS regulatory locus. It has been shown by transcription activation kinetics that several of the virulence factors are differentially regulated. fha is transcribed within 10 min following a bvgAS-inducing signal, while prn is transcribed after 1 h and ptx is not transcribed until 2 to 4 h after induction. These genes therefore represent early, intermediate, and late classes of bvg-activated promoters, respectively. Although there have been many insightful studies into the mechanisms of BvgAS-mediated regulation, the role that differential regulation of virulence genes plays in B. pertussis pathogenicity has not been characterized. We provide evidence that alterations to the promoter regions of bvg-activated genes can alter the kinetic pattern of expression of these genes without changing steady-state transcription levels. In addition, B. pertussis strains containing these promoter alterations that express either ptx at an early time or fha at a late time demonstrate a significant reduction in their ability to colonize respiratory tracts in an intranasal mouse model of infection. These data suggest a role for differential regulation of bvg-activated genes, and therefore for the BvgAS regulatory system, in the pathogenicity of B. pertussis.
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