Project description:BACKGROUND: The intestinal microbiota play a key role in the onset, progression, and recurrence of Crohn’s disease (CD). Most microbiome studies assay fecal material, which does not provide region-specific information on mucosally adherent bacteria that directly interact with host systems. Changes in luminal oxygen has been proposed as a contributor to CD dybiosis. METHODS: 16S rRNA data was generated using colonic and ileal mucosal from patients with CD and without inflammatory bowel diseases (nonIBD). We developed profiles reflecting bacterial abundance within defined aerotolerance categories. Bacterial diversity, composition, and aerotolerance profiles were compared across intestinal regions and disease phenotypes. RESULTS: Bacterial diversity decreased in CD in both ileum and colon. Aerotolerance profiles significantly differed between intestinal segments in nonIBD, though both were dominated by obligate anaerobes, as expected. In CD, high relative levels of obligate anaerobes were maintained in the colon and increased in the ileum. Relative abundance of similar and distinct taxa were altered in colon and ileum. Notably, several obligate anaerobes, such as Bacteroides fragilis, dramatically increased in CD in one or both intestinal segments, though specific increasing taxa varied across patients. Increased abundance of taxa from the Proteobacteria phylum was found only in the ileum. Bacterial diversity was significantly reduced in resected pre-operative tissues of patients that developed disease recurrence across two independent cohorts, with common lower abundance of bacteria from the Bacteroides, Streptococcus, and Blautia genera. CONCLUSIONS: Mucosally adherent bacteria in colon and ileum show distinct alterations in CD that provide additional insights not revealed in fecal material.
Project description:RNA helicases—central enzymes in RNA metabolism— often feature intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) that enable phase separation and complex interactions with other proteins and/or RNA molecules. IDRs are varied and fast evolving, which makes their function hard to predict. In the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, two non-redundant RNA helicases, RhlE1 and RhlE2, share a conserved REC catalytic core but have different C-terminal extensions (CTEs) composed of IDRs of diverse length and amino acid composition. Here, we show how the IDR diversity defines RhlE RNA helicase specificity of function. Both CTEs facilitate RNA binding and phase separation in vitro, leading to the in vivo localization of proteins in clusters within the cytoplasm. However, the CTE of RhlE2 is more efficient in enhancing REC core RNA unwinding, exhibits a greater tendency for phase separation, and interacts with the RNase E endonuclease, a crucial player in mRNA degradation. Swapping CTEs results in chimeric proteins that are biochemically active but functionally distinct as compared to their native counterparts. The RECRhlE1-CTERhlE2 chimera improves cold growth of a rhlE1 mutant, gains interaction with RNase E and affects a subset of both RhlE1 and RhlE2 RNA targets. The RECRhlE2-CTERhlE1 chimera instead hampers bacterial growth at low temperatures in the absence of RhlE1, with its detrimental effect linked to aberrant RNA droplets. By showing that IDRs modulate both protein core activities and subcellular localization, our study defines the impact of IDR diversity on the functional differentiation of RNA helicases.