Sulfur availability for Vibrio fischeri growth during symbiosis establishment depends on biogeography within the squid light organ.

ABSTRACT: The fitness of host-associated microbes depends on their ability to access nutrients in vivo. Identifying these mechanisms is significant for understanding how microbes have evolved to fill specific ecological niches within a host. Vibrio fischeri is a bioluminescent bacterium that colonizes and proliferates within the light organ of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, which provides an opportunity to study how bacteria grow in vivo. Here, the transcription factor CysB is shown to be necessary for V. fischeri both to grow on several sulfur sources in vitro and to establish symbiosis with juvenile squid. CysB is also found to regulate several genes involved in sulfate assimilation and to contribute to the growth of V. fischeri on cystine, which is the oxidized form of cysteine. A mutant that grows

SUBMITTER: Wasilko NP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6417962 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature