Dataset Information

Stable Neutralization of a Virulence Factor in Bacteria Using Temperate Phage in the Mammalian Gut.

ABSTRACT: Elimination or alteration of select members of the gut microbiota is key to therapeutic efficacy. However, the complexity of these microbial inhabitants makes it challenging to precisely target bacteria. Here, we deliver exogenous genes to specific bacteria by genomic integration of temperate phage for long-lasting modification. As a real-world therapeutic test, we engineered ? phage to transcriptionally repress Shiga toxin by using genetic hybrids between ? and other lambdoid phages to overcome resistance encoded by the virulence-expressing prophage. We show that a single dose of engineered phage propagates throughout the bacterial community and reduces Shiga toxin production in an enteric mouse model of infection without markedly affecting bacterial concentrations. Our work reveals a new framework for transferring functions to bacteria within their native environment.IMPORTANCE With the increasing frequency of antibiotic resistance, it is critical to explore new therapeutic strategies for treating bacterial infections. Here, we use a temperate phage, i.e., one that integrates itself into the bacterial genome, to neutralize the expression of a virulence factor by modifying bacterial function at the genetic level. We show that Shiga toxin production can be significantly reduced in vitro and in the mammalian gut. Alternative to traditional applications of phage therapy that rely on killing bacteria, our genetics-based antivirulence approach introduces a new framework for treating bacterial infections.

SUBMITTER: Hsu BB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6989128 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Stable Neutralization of a Virulence Factor in Bacteria Using Temperate Phage in the Mammalian Gut.

Hsu Bryan B BB Way Jeffrey C JC Silver Pamela A PA

mSystems 20200128 1

Elimination or alteration of select members of the gut microbiota is key to therapeutic efficacy. However, the complexity of these microbial inhabitants makes it challenging to precisely target bacteria. Here, we deliver exogenous genes to specific bacteria by genomic integration of temperate phage for long-lasting modification. As a real-world therapeutic test, we engineered λ phage to transcriptionally repress Shiga toxin by using genetic hybrids between λ and other lambdoid phages to overcome ...[more]

PMID: 31992629

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Project description:The mammalian intestine provides nutrients to hundreds of bacterial species. Closely related species often harbor homologous nutrient utilization genes and cocolonize the gut, raising questions regarding the strategies mediating their stable coexistence. Here we reveal that related Bacteroides species that can utilize the mammalian glycan chondroitin sulfate (CS) have diverged in the manner in which they temporally regulate orthologous CS utilization genes. Whereas certain Bacteroides species display a transient surge in CS utilization transcripts upon exposure to CS, other species exhibit sustained activation of these genes. Remarkably, species-specific expression dynamics are retained even when the key players governing a particular response are replaced by those from a species with a dissimilar response. Bacteroides species exhibiting distinct expression behaviors in the presence of CS can be cocultured on CS. However, they vary in their responses to CS availability and to the composition of the bacterial community when CS is the sole carbon source. Our results indicate that diversity resulting from regulation of polysaccharide utilization genes may enable the coexistence of gut bacterial species using a given nutrient.Genes mediating a specific task are typically conserved in related microbes. For instance, gut Bacteroides species harbor orthologous nutrient breakdown genes and may face competition from one another for these nutrients. How, then, does the gut microbial composition maintain such remarkable stability over long durations? We establish that in the case of genes conferring the ability to utilize the nutrient chondroitin sulfate (CS), microbial species vary in how they temporally regulate these genes and exhibit subtle growth differences on the basis of CS availability and community composition. Similarly to how differential regulation of orthologous genes enables related species to access new environments, gut bacteria may regulate the same genes in distinct fashions to reduce the overlap with coexisting species for utilization of available nutrients.

Dataset Information

Stable Neutralization of a Virulence Factor in Bacteria Using Temperate Phage in the Mammalian Gut.

Publications

Stable Neutralization of a Virulence Factor in Bacteria Using Temperate Phage in the Mammalian Gut.

Similar Datasets

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