Abstract
The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is important for interbacterial competition and virulence in Vibrio species. It is generally agreed that T6SS provides a fitness advantage to Vibrios. Some Vibrio species possess one, while others possess two T6SSs. Even within the same Vibrio species, different strains can harbor a variable number of T6SSs. Such is the case in V. fluvialis, an opportunistic human pathogen, that some V. fluvialis strains do not harbor T6SS1. This study found that Amphritea, Marinomonas, Marinobacterium, Vibrio, Photobacterium, and Oceanospirillum species have genes encoding V. fluvialis T6SS1 homologs. The cladogram of T6SS1 genes suggested that these genes appeared to be horizontally acquired by V. fluvialis, V. furnissii, and some other Vibrio species, when compared with the species tree. Codon insertions, codon deletions, nonsense mutations, and the insertion sequence are found in many genes, such as clpV1, tssL1, and tssF1, which encode structure components of T6SS1 in V. furnissii and V. fluvialis. Codon deletion events are more common than codon insertion, insertion sequence disruption, and nonsense mutation events in genes that encode components of T6SS1. Similarly, codon insertions and codon deletions are found in genes relevant to T6SS2, including tssM2, vgrG2 and vasH, in V. furnissii and V. fluvialis. These mutations are likely to disable the functions of T6SSs. Our findings indicate that T6SS may have a fitness disadvantage in V. furnissii and V. fluvialis, and the loss of function in T6SS may help these Vibrio species to survive under certain conditions.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National College Students' innovation and entrepreneurship training program 2021102941514 to JK Sun and HC Su.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 31872523.
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ML and RL conceived and designed the experiments. JK.S and HC.S prepared Table 1, 2 and Table S1, S2. WH. Z prepared fig.1 , 2 and Fig. S1. XS.L, RL, and ML wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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Communicated by Yusuf Akhter.
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203_2023_3557_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary file1 Mutations in tssL1. Comparison of tssL1 genes between V. furnissii 2013V-1001 and V. furnissii NCTC11218. Red boldface characters indicate proposed deletion codon, insertion codon or nonsense codon. Nucleotide numbers corresponding to the translation start codon indicated above the sequences. (TIF 1151 KB)
203_2023_3557_MOESM3_ESM.rar
Supplementary file3 The sequences that were used for liner comparison of the T6SS1 loci to generate Fig. 2. (RAR 159 KB)
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Sun, J., Su, H., Zhang, W. et al. Comparative genomics revealed that Vibrio furnissii and Vibrio fluvialis have mutations in genes related to T6SS1 and T6SS2. Arch Microbiol 205, 207 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03557-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03557-1