Transcriptomic Analysis of Laribacter hongkongensis Reveals Adaptive Response Coupled with Temperature

Abstract

Bacterial adaptation to different hosts requires transcriptomic alteration in response to the environmental conditions. Laribacter hongkongensis is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, urease-positive bacillus caused infections in liver cirrhosis patients and community-acquired gastroenteritis. It was also found in intestine from commonly consumed freshwater fishes and drinking water reservoirs. Since L. hongkongensis could survive as either fish or human pathogens, their survival mechanisms in two different habitats should be temperature-regulated and highly complex. Therefore, we performed transcriptomic analysis of L. hongkongensis at body temperatures of fish and human in order to elucidate the versatile adaptation mechanisms coupled with the temperatures. We identified numerous novel temperature-induced pathways involved in host pathogenesis, in addition to the shift of metabolic equilibriums and overexpression of stress-related proteins. Moreover, these pathways form a network that can be activated at a particular temperature, and change the physiology of the bacteria to adapt to the environments. In summary, the dynamic of transcriptomes in L. hongkongensis provides versatile strategies for the bacterial survival at different habitats and this alteration prepares the bacterium for the challenge of host immunity.

Malate-Dependent Carbon Utilization Enhances Central Metabolism and Contributes to Biological Fitness of Laribacter hongkongensis via CRP Regulation

“…Consistently, the expression levels of crp was markedly increased under anaerobic conditions (Figure 6E) and acidic pHs (Figure 6F). Furthermore, we assessed the mRNA level of crp under growth temperatures of 20 and 37°C and did not observe any significant differences in growth rate (data not shown), which is in line with our previous transcriptomic data (Kong et al, 2017). These findings emphasize the important contributions of the transcription factor CRP for the biological fitness of L. hongkongensis .…”

Exposure of the Opportunistic Marine Pathogen Photobacterium damselae subsp. damselae to Human Body Temperature Is a Stressful Condition That Shapes the Transcriptome, Viability, Cell Morphology, and Virulence

“…Recent transcriptomic studies have revealed the connection between temperature and virulence in marine pathogenic bacteria (Williams et al, 2014;Kong et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2018). In the current work, we demonstrate that Pdd undergoes a stress response at 37 • C, with heat-shock proteins accounting for the most upregulated functions at this temperature.…”

Pan-Genome Analysis of Laribacter hongkongensis: Virulence Gene Profiles, Carbohydrate-Active Enzyme Prediction, and Antimicrobial Resistance Characterization

“…The serological detection methods were established ( Tse et al, 2014 ; Wang et al, 2017 ). The adaptive response and transcriptional regulation patterns of L. hongkongensis coupled with different nutritional sources, aerobic or anaerobic conditions, and different temperatures were also studied ( Xiong L. et al, 2015 ; Kong et al, 2016 , 2017 ; Xiong et al, 2017 , 2019 ). Researchers also discussed the pathogenicity factors of L. hongkongensis ( Xie et al, 2014 ).…”