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Quorum Sensing Autoinducer(s) and Flagellum Independently Mediate EPS Signaling in Vibrio cholerae Through LuxO-Independent Mechanism

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Vibrio cholerae, the Gram-negative bacterium causing lethal diarrheal disease cholera, forms biofilm on solid surfaces to gain adaptive advantage for successful survival in aquatic reservoirs. Expression of exopolysaccharide (EPS), an extracellular matrix material, has been found critical for biofilm-based environmental persistence. In a subset of epidemic-causing V. cholerae, absence of flagellum but not motility was identified to induce elevated exopolysaccharide expression. Identification of the role played by quorum sensing autoinducer molecules, i.e., cholera autoinducer 1 (CAI-1) and autoinducer 2 (AI-2) as well as central regulator LuxO on EPS expression in the subset was explored. Deletion mutations were introduced in vital genes responsible for synthesizing CAI-1 (cqsA), AI-2 (luxS), flagellum (flaA), LuxO (luxO), flagellar motor (motX), and VpsR (vpsR) in the model strain MO10. Subsequent phenotypic alterations in terms of colony morphology, EPS expression, biofilm formation, and transcription level of relevant genes were analyzed. Autoinducer cross-feeding experiment confirmed the role of autoinducers in EPS signaling. Results reveal that autoinducers and flagellum are the two major EPS signaling units in this subset where one unit becomes predominant for EPS production in absence of the other. Moreover, either unit exerts negative influence on EPS induction by the other. Both the EPS signaling cascades are independent of LuxO contribution and essentially involve sodium-driven flagellar motor and VpsR. A cell density and flagellum-mediated, but LuxO-independent, EPS signaling mechanism is considered to be functional in these organisms that confers their survival fitness.

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Acknowledgements

Authors thank Prof. Karl E. Klose (Dept. of Biology, UTSA, USA) for gifts of strains and plasmid vectors and Prof. Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Department of Geography, University of Calcutta, for technical support.

Funding

This study is financially supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, in the form of a research grant (SR/SO/HS-43/2006), and the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (Project Number BT/PR3802/BRB/10/981/2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Physiology with Community Health, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, 721102, India

    Smritikana Biswas, Prithwiraj Mukherjee, Tuhin Manna, Kunal Dutta, Kartik Chandra Guchhait, Amit Karmakar, Monalisha Karmakar, Parimal Dua & Chandradipa Ghosh

  2. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, 721102, India

    Kunal Dutta & Amiya Kumar Panda

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  1. Smritikana Biswas
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  2. Prithwiraj Mukherjee
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Correspondence to Chandradipa Ghosh.

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Biswas, S., Mukherjee, P., Manna, T. et al. Quorum Sensing Autoinducer(s) and Flagellum Independently Mediate EPS Signaling in Vibrio cholerae Through LuxO-Independent Mechanism. Microb Ecol 77, 616–630 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-018-1262-5

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