Journal
MICROBIAL PATHOGENESIS
Volume 71-72, Issue -, Pages 8-14Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.micpath.2014.04.001
Keywords
Vibrio vulnificus; VvpE; Virulence Host model; Tenebrio molitor; Quorum sensing
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea - Korean Government [2010-0015901]
- Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Ministry of Education [2013R1A1A2012220]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2013R1A1A2012220] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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Vibrio vulnificus, a Gram-negative bacterium, is an opportunistic human pathogen responsible for fatal septicemia caused by contaminated sea foods in eastern Asia. Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-density dependent gene regulation mechanism that controls the expression of many virulence genes in various bacteria and V. vulnificus has been also suggested to express their virulence genes through the QS system. In this study, we investigated the role of QS system and QS-regulated exoproteases in the virulence of V. vulnificus using several invertebrate host models, Tenebrio molitor, an insect, Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode, and brine shrimp (Artemia), an aquatic crustacean. When the culture supernatant of smcR (major QS regulator of V. vulnificus) mutant was injected to T. molitor larvae, it failed to induce the melanization of T molitor larvae, while the culture supernatant of lux() (upstream negative regulator of smcR) mutant more strongly induced the melanization than wild type. These results demonstrated that QS system of V. vulnificus is crucial for virulence to T. molitor larvae. Among several QS-dependently expressed exoproteases of V. vulnificus, vvpE encoding a metalloprotease was mainly responsible for the melanization of T molitor larvae, in that the culture supernatant of vvpE mutant failed to induce the melanization. This result was confirmed using the C elegans and Artemia salina model systems, in which the vvpE mutant strains were attenuated in killing C elegans and A. saline, compared with wild type, indicating that VvpE is important in the infection of V vulnificus. In conclusion, we suggest that QS system and a QS-dependent exoprotease, VvpE are crucial for the V vulnificus virulence to invertebrates. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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