Affiliation:
1. Global Health Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Although it is a human pathogen,
Vibrio cholerae
is a regular member of aquatic habitats, such as coastal regions and estuaries. Within these environments,
V. cholerae
often takes advantage of the abundance of zooplankton and their chitinous molts as a nutritious surface on which the bacteria can form biofilms. Chitin also induces the developmental program of natural competence for transformation in several species of the genus
Vibrio.
In this study, we show that
V. cholerae
does not distinguish between species-specific and non-species-specific DNA at the level of DNA uptake. This is in contrast to what has been shown for other Gram-negative bacteria, such as
Neisseria gonorrhoeae
and
Haemophilus influenzae.
However, species specificity with respect to natural transformation still occurs in
V. cholerae
. This is based on a positive correlation between quorum sensing and natural transformation. Using mutant-strain analysis, cross-feeding experiments, and synthetic cholera autoinducer-1 (CAI-1), we provide strong evidence that the species-specific signaling molecule CAI-1 plays a major role in natural competence for transformation. We suggest that CAI-1 can be considered a competence pheromone.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
103 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献