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Regulator of ribonuclease activity modulates the pathogenicity of Vibrio vulnificus

  • Microbial Pathogenesis and Host-Microbe Interaction
  • Published:
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Abstract

RraA, a protein regulator of RNase E activity, plays a unique role in modulating the mRNA abundance in Escherichia coli. The marine pathogenic bacterium Vibrio vulnificus also possesses homologs of RNase E (VvRNase E) and RraA (VvRraA1 and VvRraA2). However, their physiological roles have not yet been investigated. In this study, we demonstrated that VvRraA1 expression levels affect the pathogenicity of V. vulnificus. Compared to the wild-type strain, the VvrraA1-deleted strain (ΔVvrraA1) showed decreased motility, invasiveness, biofilm formation ability as well as virulence in mice; these phenotypic changes of ΔVvrraA1 were restored by the exogenous expression of VvrraA1. Transcriptomic analysis indicated that VvRraA1 expression levels affect the abundance of a large number of mRNA species. Among them, the half-lives of mRNA species encoding virulence factors (e.g., smcR and htpG) that have been previously shown to affect VvrraA1 expression-dependent phenotypes were positively correlated with VvrraA1 expression levels. These findings suggest that VvRraA1 modulates the pathogenicity of V. vulnificus by regulating the abundance of a subset of mRNA species.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Chung-Ang University Graduate Research Scholarship in 2020 and the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant no. NRF-2021R1A2-C3008934 to K. L.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, 06974, Republic of Korea

    Jaejin Lee, Eunkyoung Shin, Jaeyeong Park & Kangseok Lee

  2. Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Chuncheon, 24252, Republic of Korea

    Minho Lee

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  1. Jaejin Lee
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Correspondence to Minho Lee or Kangseok Lee.

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Conflict of Interest The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Ethical Statements All animal experiments were performed in accordance with the National Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Scientific Research and were approved by the Chung-Ang University Support Center (Approval No. CAU2012-0044).

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Lee, J., Shin, E., Park, J. et al. Regulator of ribonuclease activity modulates the pathogenicity of Vibrio vulnificus. J Microbiol. 59, 1133–1141 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-021-1518-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-021-1518-5

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