Person:

Mekalanos, John

The Vibrio cholerae lipopolysaccharide O1 antigen is a major target of bacteriophages and the human immune system and is of critical importance for vaccine design. We used an O1-specific lytic bacteriophage as a tool to probe the capacity of V. cholerae to alter its O1 antigen and identified a novel mechanism by which this organism can modulate O antigen expression and exhibit intra-strain heterogeneity. We identified two phase variable genes required for O1 antigen biosynthesis, manA and wbeL. manA resides outside of the previously recognized O1 antigen biosynthetic locus, and encodes for a phosphomannose isomerase critical for the initial step in O1 antigen biosynthesis. We determined that manA and wbeL phase variants are attenuated for virulence, providing functional evidence to further support the critical role of the O1 antigen for infectivity. We provide the first report of phase variation modulating O1 antigen expression in V. cholerae, and show that the maintenance of these phase variable loci is an important means by which this facultative pathogen can generate the diverse subpopulations of cells needed for infecting the host intestinal tract and for escaping predation by an O1-specific phage.

Members of the genus Vibrio are important marine and aquaculture pathogens. Hemolytic activity has been identified as a virulence factor in many pathogenic vibrios including V. cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus, V. alginolyticus, V. harveyi and V. vulnificus. We have used transposon mutagenesis to identify genes involved in the hemolytic activity of shrimp-pathogenic V. harveyi strain PSU3316. Out of 1,764 mutants screened, five mutants showed reduced hemolytic activity on sheep blood agar and exhibited virulence attenuation in shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei). Mutants were identified by comparing transposon junction sequences to a draft of assembly of the PSU3316 genome. Surprisingly none of the disrupted open reading frames or gene neighborhoods contained genes annotated as hemolysins. The gene encoding RseB, a negative regulator of the sigma factor ((\sigma^E)), was interrupted in 2 out of 5 transposon mutants, in addition, the transcription factor CytR, a threonine synthetase, and an efflux-associated cytoplasmic protein were also identified. Knockout mutations introduced into the rpoE operon at the rseB gene exhibited low hemolytic activity in sheep blood agar, and were 3-to 7-fold attenuated for colonization in shrimp. Comparison of whole cell extracted proteins in the rseB mutant (PSU4030) to the wild-type by 2-D gel electrophoresis revealed 6 differentially expressed proteins, including two down-regulated porins (OmpC-like and OmpN) and an upregulated protease (DegQ) which have been associated with (\sigma^E) in other organisms. Our study is the first report linking hemolytic activity to the (\sigma^E) regulators in pathogenic Vibrio species and suggests expression of this virulence-linked phenotype is governed by multiple regulatory pathways within the V. harveyi.

YbeY, a highly conserved protein, is an RNase in E. coli and plays key roles in both processing of the critical 3′ end of 16 S rRNA and in 70 S ribosome quality control under stress. These central roles account for YbeY's inclusion in the postulated minimal bacterial genome. However, YbeY is not essential in E. coli although loss of ybeY severely sensitizes it to multiple physiological stresses. Here, we show that YbeY is an essential endoribonuclease in Vibrio cholerae and is crucial for virulence, stress regulation, RNA processing and ribosome quality control, and is part of a core set of RNases essential in most representative pathogens. To understand its function, we analyzed the rRNA and ribosome profiles of a V. cholerae strain partially depleted for YbeY and other RNase mutants associated with 16 S rRNA processing; our results demonstrate that YbeY is also crucial for 16 S rRNA 3′ end maturation in V. cholerae and that its depletion impedes subunit assembly into 70 S ribosomes. YbeY's importance to V. cholerae pathogenesis was demonstrated by the complete loss of mice colonization and biofilm formation, reduced cholera toxin production, and altered expression levels of virulence-associated small RNAs of a V. cholerae strain partially depleted for YbeY. Notably, the ybeY genes of several distantly related pathogens can fully complement an E. coli ΔybeY strain under various stress conditions, demonstrating the high conservation of YbeY's activity in stress regulation. Taken together, this work provides the first comprehensive exploration of YbeY's physiological role in a human pathogen, showing its conserved function across species in essential cellular processes.