Affiliation:
1. R&D Center, inBioNET Corporation, Daejeon 305-390, Korea
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Gram-negative bacteria can communicate with each other by
N
-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs), which are quorum-sensing autoinducers. Recently, the
aiiA
gene (encoding an enzyme catalyzing the degradation of AHL) has been cloned from
Bacillus
sp. strain 240B1. During investigations in the course of the ongoing
Bacillus thuringiensis
subsp.
morrisoni
genome project, an
aiiA
homologue gene in the genome sequence was found. These results led to consideration of the possibility of the widespread existence of the gene in
B. thuringiensis. aiiA
homologue genes were found in 16 subspecies of
B. thuringiensis
, and their sequences were determined. Comparison of the
Bacillus
sp. strain 240B1
aiiA
gene with the
B. thuringiensis aiiA
homologue genes showed high homologies of 89 to 95% and 90 to 96% in the nucleotide sequence and deduced amino acid sequence, respectively. Among the subspecies of
B. thuringiensis
having an
aiiA
gene, the subspecies
aizawai
,
galleriae
,
kurstaki
,
kyushuensis
,
ostriniae
, and
subtoxicus
were shown to degrade AHL. It was observed that recombinant
Escherichia coli
producing AiiA proteins also had AHL-degrading activity and could also attenuate the plant pathogenicity of
Erwinia carotovora
. These results indicate that insecticidal
B. thuringiensis
strains might have potential to compete with gram-negative bacteria in natural ecosystems by autoinducer-degrading activity.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Ecology,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,Food Science,Biotechnology
Cited by
201 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