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Transcriptional characterization of Vibrio fischeri during colonization of juvenile Euprymna scolopes.

ABSTRACT: The marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri is the monospecific symbiont of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, and the establishment of this association involves a number of signaling pathways and transcriptional responses between both partners. We report here the first full RNA-Seq dataset representing host-associated V. fischeri cells from colonized juvenile E. scolopes, as well as comparative transcriptomes under both laboratory and simulated marine planktonic conditions. These data elucidate the broad transcriptional changes that these bacteria undergo during the early stages of symbiotic colonization. We report several previously undescribed and unexpected transcriptional responses within the early stages of this symbiosis, including gene expression patterns consistent with biochemical stresses inside the host, and metabolic patterns distinct from those reported in associations with adult animals. Integration of these transcriptional data with a recently developed metabolic model of V. fischeri provides us with a clearer picture of the metabolic state of symbionts within the juvenile host, including their possible carbon sources. Taken together, these results expand our understanding of the early stages of the squid-vibrio symbiosis, and more generally inform the transcriptional responses underlying the activities of marine microbes during host colonization.

SUBMITTER: Thompson LR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5409853 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Transcriptional characterization of Vibrio fischeri during colonization of juvenile Euprymna scolopes.

Thompson Luke R LR Nikolakakis Kiel K Pan Shu S Reed Jennifer J Knight Rob R Ruby Edward G EG

Environmental microbiology 20170321 5

The marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri is the monospecific symbiont of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, and the establishment of this association involves a number of signaling pathways and transcriptional responses between both partners. We report here the first full RNA-Seq dataset representing host-associated V. fischeri cells from colonized juvenile E. scolopes, as well as comparative transcriptomes under both laboratory and simulated marine planktonic conditions. These data eluc ...[more]

PMID: 28152560

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Project description:BackgroundMany animals and plants acquire their coevolved symbiotic partners shortly post-embryonic development. Thus, during embryogenesis, cellular features must be developed that will promote both symbiont colonization of the appropriate tissues, as well as persistence at those sites. While variation in the degree of maturation occurs in newborn tissues, little is unknown about how this variation influences the establishment and persistence of host-microbe associations.ResultsThe binary symbiosis model, the squid-vibrio (Euprymna scolopes-Vibrio fischeri) system, offers a way to study how an environmental gram-negative bacterium establishes a beneficial, persistent, extracellular colonization of an animal host. Here, we show that bacterial symbionts occupy six different colonization sites in the light-emitting organ of the host that have both distinct morphologies and responses to antibiotic treatment. Vibrio fischeri was most resilient to antibiotic disturbance when contained within the smallest and least mature colonization sites. We show that this variability in crypt development at the time of hatching allows the immature sites to act as a symbiont reservoir that has the potential to reseed the more mature sites in the host organ when they have been cleared by antibiotic treatment. This strategy may produce an ecologically significant resiliency to the association.ConclusionsThe data presented here provide evidence that the evolution of the squid-vibrio association has been selected for a nascent organ with a range of host tissue maturity at the onset of symbiosis. The resulting variation in physical and chemical environments results in a spectrum of host-symbiont interactions, notably, variation in susceptibility to environmental disturbance. This "insurance policy" provides resiliency to the symbiosis during the critical period of its early development. While differences in tissue maturity at birth have been documented in other animals, such as along the infant gut tract of mammals, the impact of this variation on host-microbiome interactions has not been studied. Because a wide variety of symbiosis characters are highly conserved over animal evolution, studies of the squid-vibrio association have the promise of providing insights into basic strategies that ensure successful bacterial passage between hosts in horizontally transmitted symbioses. Video Abstract.

Project description:Libraries of defined mutants are valuable research tools but necessarily lack gene knockouts that are lethal under the conditions used in library construction. In this study, we augmented a Vibrio fischeri mutant library generated on a rich medium (LBS, which contains [per liter] 10 g of tryptone, 5 g of yeast extract, 20 g of NaCl, and 50 mM Tris [pH 7.5]) by selecting transposon insertion mutants on supplemented LBS and screening for those unable to grow on LBS. We isolated strains with insertions in alr, glr (murI), glmS, several heme biosynthesis genes, and ftsA, as well as a mutant disrupted 14 bp upstream of ftsQ Mutants with insertions in ftsA or upstream of ftsQ were recovered by addition of Mg2+ to LBS, but their cell morphology and motility were affected. The ftsA mutant was more strongly affected and formed cells or chains of cells that appeared to wind back on themselves helically. Growth of mutants with insertions in glmS, alr, or glr was recovered with N-acetylglucosamine (NAG), d-alanine, or d-glutamate, respectively. We hypothesized that NAG, d-alanine, or d-glutamate might be available to V. fischeri in the Euprymna scolopes light organ; however, none of these mutants colonized the host effectively. In contrast, hemA and hemL mutants, which are auxotrophic for δ-aminolevulinate (ALA), colonized at wild-type levels, although mutants later in the heme biosynthetic pathway were severely impaired or unable to colonize. Our findings parallel observations that legume hosts provide Bradyrhizobium symbionts with ALA, but they contrast with virulence phenotypes of hemA mutants in some pathogens. The results further inform our understanding of the symbiotic light organ environment.IMPORTANCE By supplementing a rich yeast-based medium, we were able to recover V. fischeri mutants with insertions in conditionally essential genes, and further characterization of these mutants provided new insights into this bacterium's symbiotic environment. Most notably, we show evidence that the squid host can provide V. fischeri with enough ALA to support its growth in the light organ, paralleling the finding that legumes provide Bradyrhizobium ALA in symbiotic nodules. Taken together, our results show how a simple method of augmenting already rich media can expand the reach and utility of defined mutant libraries.

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Transcriptional characterization of Vibrio fischeri during colonization of juvenile Euprymna scolopes.

Publications

Transcriptional characterization of Vibrio fischeri during colonization of juvenile Euprymna scolopes.

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