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Zinc-Induced Transposition of Insertion Sequence Elements Contributes to Increased Adaptability of Cupriavidus metallidurans

ABSTRACT: Bacteria can respond to adverse environments by increasing their genomic variability and subsequently facilitating adaptive evolution. To demonstrate this, the contribution of Insertion Sequence (IS) elements to the genetic adaptation of Cupriavidus metallidurans AE126 to toxic zinc concentrations was determined. This derivative of type strain CH34, devoid of its main zinc resistance determinant, is still able to increase its zinc resistance level. Specifically, upon plating on toxic zinc medium, resistant variants arose in which a compromised cnrYX regulatory locus caused derepression of CnrH sigma factor activity and concomitant induction of the corresponding RND-driven cnrCBA efflux system. Late-occurring zinc resistant variants likely arose in response to the selective conditions, as they were enriched in cnrYX disruptions caused by specific IS elements whose transposase expression was found to be zinc-responsive. Interestingly, deletion of cnrH, and consequently CnrH-dependent adaptation potential, still enabled adaptation by transposition of IS elements (ISRme5 and IS1086) that provided outward-directed promoters driving cnrCBAT transcription. Finally, adaptation to zinc by IS reshuffling can also enhance the adaptation to subsequent environmental challenges. Thus, transposition of IS elements can be induced by stress conditions and play a multifaceted, pivotal role in the adaptation to these and subsequent stress conditions.

ORGANISM(S): Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 Cupriavidus metallidurans

PROVIDER: GSE74091 | GEO | 2016/12/31

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA298992

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Insertion sequences (IS) are compact and pervasive transposable elements found in bacteria, which encode only the genes necessary for their mobilization and maintenance. IS200/IS605 elements undergo ‘peel-and-paste’ transposition catalyzed by a TnpA transposase, but intriguingly, they also encode diverse, TnpB-family genes that are evolutionarily related to the CRISPR-associated effectors Cas9 and Cas12. Recent studies demonstrated that TnpB-family enzymes function as RNA-guided DNA endonucleases, but the broader biological role of this activity has remained enigmatic. Here we show that IscB and TnpB are essential to prevent loss of the donor IS element and potential transposon extinction as a consequence of the TnpA transposition mechanism. We first performed phylogenetic analysis of IscB/TnpB proteins and selected a family of related IS elements from Geobacillus stearothermophilus that we predicted would be mobilized by a common TnpA homolog. After reconstituting transposition using a heterologous expression system in E. coli, we found that IS elements were readily lost from the donor site due to the activity of TnpA in rejoining the flanking sequences back together upon excision. However, these IS elements also encode non-coding RNAs that guide TnpB and IscB nucleases to precisely recognize and cleave these excision products, leading either to elimination of the excision product or re-installation of the transposon through recombination. Indeed, under experimental conditions in which TnpA and TnpB-RNA complexes were co-expressed together with a genomically integrated IS element, transposon retention was significantly increased relative to conditions expressing TnpA alone. Remarkably, both TnpA and TnpB recognize the same AT-rich transposon-adjacent motif (TAM) during transposon excision and RNA-guided DNA cleavage, respectively, revealing a striking convergence in the evolution of DNA sequence specificity between transposase and nuclease. Collectively, our study reveals that RNA-guided DNA cleavage is a primal biochemical activity that arose to bias the selfish inheritance of transposable elements, which was later co-opted during the evolution of CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity for antiviral defense.

Project description:Background: The high number of heavy metal resistance genes in the soil bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 makes it an interesting model organism to study microbial responses to heavy metals. Results: In this study the transcriptional response of this bacterium was measured after challenging it to a wide range of sub-lethal concentrations of various essential or toxic metals. Considering the global transcriptional responses for each challenge as well as by identifying the overlap in upregulated genes between different metal responses, the sixteen metals could be clustered in three different groups. Additionally, next to the assessment of the transcriptional response of already known metal resistance genes, new metal response gene clusters were identified. The majority of the metal response loci showed similar expression profiles when cells were exposed to different metals, suggesting complex cross-talk at transcriptional level between the different metal responses. The highly redundant nature of these metal resistant regions – illustrated by the large number of paralogous genes – combined with the phylogenetic distribution of these metal response regions within evolutionary related and other metal resistant bacteria, provides important insights on the recent evolution of this naturally soil dwelling bacterium towards a highly metal-resistant strain found in harsh and anthropogenic environments. Conclusions: The metal-resistant soil bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 displays myriads of gene expression patterns when exposed to a wide range of heavy metals at non-lethal concentrations. The interplay between the different gene expression clusters points towards a complex cross-regulated regulatory network governing heavy metal resistance in C. metallidurans CH34. Keywords: Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34, transcriptional regulation, heavy metal resistance Two-condition experiments. Comparing samples after induction with heavy metals versus non-induced samples. Biological duplicate or triplicate. Each array contains 3 or 4 technical replicates.

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Zinc-Induced Transposition of Insertion Sequence Elements Contributes to Increased Adaptability of Cupriavidus metallidurans

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