| Title | Vibrio parahaemolyticus cqsA controls production of quorum sensing signal molecule 3-hydroxyundecan-4-one and regulatessensing signal molecule 3-hydroxyundecan-4-one and regulates colony morphology |
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| Author | Kui Wu1,2,4*, Yangyun Zheng1, Qingping Wu2*, Haiying Chen1, Songzhe Fu3, Biao Kan4, Yongyan Long1,4, Xiansheng Ni1, and Junling Tu1 |
| Address | 1The Collaboration Unit for Field Epidemiology of State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanchang, 330038, P. R. China, 2State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology South China, Guangdong, Institute of Microbiology, Guangzhou, 510070, P. R. China, 3College of Marine Technology and Environment, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, 116023, P. R. China, 4State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, 102206, P. R. China |
| Bibliography | Journal of Microbiology, 57(12),1105-1114, 2019, |
| DOI | 10.1007/s12275-019-9379-x |
| Key Words | Vibrio parahaemolyticus, quorum sensing, cqsA, 3-hydroxyundecan-4-one, colony morphology |
| Abstract | In order to adapt to different environments, Vibrio parahaemolyticus employed a complicated quorum sensing system to orchestrate gene expression and diverse colony morphology patterns. In this study, the function of the putative quorum sensing signal synthase gene cqsA (VPA0711 in V. parahaemolyticus strain RIMD2210633 genome) was investigated. The cloning and expression of V. parahaemolyticus cqsA in Escherichia coli system induced the production of a new quorum sensing signal that was found in its culture supernatant. The signal was purified by high performance liquid chromatography methods and determined to be 3-hydroxyundecan- 4-one by indirect and direct mass spectra assays. The deletion of cqsA in RIMD2210633 changed V. parahaemolyticus colony morphology from the classical ‘fried-egg’ shape (thick and opaque in the center, while thin and translucent in the edge) of the wild-type colony to a ‘pancake’ shape (no significant difference between the centre and the edge) of the cqsAdeleted colony. This morphological change could be restored by complementary experiment with cqsA gene or the signal extract. In addition, the expression of opaR, a well-known quorum sensing regulatory gene, could be up-regulated by cqsA deletion. Our results suggested that V. parahaemolyticus used cqsA to produce 3-hydroxyundecan-4-one signal and thereby regulated colony morphology and other quorum sensing-associated behaviors. |