Phenotypic heterogeneity: a bacterial virulence strategy

Weigel, Whitney; Dersch, Petra

doi:10.1016/j.micinf.2018.01.008

Cited by 44 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The development of heterogeneous subpopulations during host infection has been associated with various adaptive strategies (Ackermann, 2015;Weigel and Dersch, 2018). First, phenotypic heterogeneity can allow a genotype to survive in fluctuating environments (Rainey et al, 2011;Schreiber et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous mutations in a regulatory gene induce phenotypic heterogeneity and adaptation of Ralstonia solanacearum to changing environments

Perrier

Barlet

Rodrı́guez-Lázaro

et al. 2019

Environmental Microbiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary An evolution experiment with the bacterial plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum revealed that several adaptive mutations conferring enhanced fitness in plants arose in the efpR gene encoding a regulator of virulence and metabolic functions. In this study, we found that an efpR mutant systematically displays colonies with two morphotypes: the type S (‘smooth’, similar to the wild type) and the type EV (‘efpR variant’). We demonstrated that the efpH gene, a homologue of efpR, plays a key role in the control of phenotypic heterogeneity, the ΔefpR‐ΔefpH double mutant being stably locked into the EV type. Using mixed infection assays, we demonstrated that the type EV is metabolically more proficient than the type S and displays fitness gain in specific environments, whereas the type S has a better fitness into the plant environment. We provide evidence that this efpR‐dependent phenotypic heterogeneity is a general feature of strains of the R. solanacearum species complex and could occur in natural conditions. This study highlights the potential role of phenotypic heterogeneity in this plant pathogen as an adaptive trait to changing environments.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous mutations in a regulatory gene induce phenotypic heterogeneity and adaptation of Ralstonia solanacearum to changing environments

Perrier

Barlet

Rodrı́guez-Lázaro

et al. 2019

Environmental Microbiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To reduce the impact of cellular heterogeneity 33 – 35 and to standardize the total amount of available antigens, we aimed to encapsulate at least a few hundred bacteria per droplet. The auto-fluorescence of HK-B 36 conveniently allowed to visualize the area of the bactoline, and to estimate the number of bacteria in the area (164 ± 30 HK-B per droplet).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep phenotypic characterization of immunization-induced antibacterial IgG repertoires in mice using a single-antibody bioassay

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Antibodies with antibacterial activity need to bind to the bacterial surface with affinity, specificity, and sufficient density to induce efficient elimination. To characterize the anti-bacterial antibody repertoire, we developed an in-droplet bioassay with single-antibody resolution. The assay not only allowed us to identify whether the secreted antibodies recognized a bacterial surface antigen, but also to estimate the apparent dissociation constant (KD app) of the interaction and the density of the recognized epitope on the bacteria. Herein, we found substantial differences within the KD app/epitope density profiles in mice immunized with various species of heat-killed bacteria. The experiments further revealed a high cross-reactivity of the secreted IgG repertoires, binding to even unrelated bacteria with high affinity. This application confirmed the ability to quantify the anti-bacterial antibody repertoire and the utility of the developed bioassay to study the interplay between bacteria and the humoral response.

show abstract

“…Phenotypic heterogeneity increases the flexibility and versatility of bacteria as a population. Phenotypic heterogeneity has been observed in many bacteria in various functions such as antibiotic persistence [13], virulence [10,[14][15][16], motility [17], and sporulation [18,19].…”

Section: Many Bacterial Pathogens Have Been Observed To Exhibit Variamentioning

confidence: 99%

Cell-length heterogeneity: a population-level solution to growth/virulence trade-offs in the plant pathogen Dickeya dadantii

Cui

Yang

Kharadi

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Necrotrophic plant pathogens acquire nutrients from dead plant cells, which requires the disintegration of the plant cell wall and tissue structures by the pathogen. Infected plants lose tissue integrity and functional immunity as a result, exposing the nutrient rich, decayed tissues to the environment. One challenge for the necrotrophs to successfully cause secondary infection (infection spread from an initially infected plant to the nearby uninfected plants) is to effectively utilize nutrients released from hosts towards building up a large population before other saprophytes come. In this study, we observed that the necrotrophic pathogen Dickeya dadantii exhibited heterogeneity in bacterial cell length in an isogenic population during infection of potato tuber. While some cells were regular rod-shape (<10μm), the rest elongated into filamentous cells (>10μm). Short cells tended to occur at the interface of healthy and diseased tissues, during the early stage of infection when active attacking and killing is occurring, while filamentous cells tended to form when large amount of nutrients were released at a later stage of infection. Short cells expressed all necessary virulence factors and motility, whereas filamentous cells did not engage in virulence, were non-mobile and more sensitive to environmental stress. However, compared to the short cells, the filamentous cells displayed elevated metabolism and faster growth, which may benefit the pathogens to build up a large population necessary for the secondary infection. The segregation of the two subpopulations was dependent on differential expression of the alarmone guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp). When exposed to fresh tuber tissues or freestanding water, filamentous cells quickly transformed to short virulent cells. The pathogen adaptation of cell length heterogeneity identified in this study presents a model for how some necrotrophs balance virulence and vegetative growth to maximize fitness during infection.

show abstract

Phenotypic heterogeneity: a bacterial virulence strategy

Cited by 44 publications

References 64 publications

Spontaneous mutations in a regulatory gene induce phenotypic heterogeneity and adaptation of Ralstonia solanacearum to changing environments

Spontaneous mutations in a regulatory gene induce phenotypic heterogeneity and adaptation of Ralstonia solanacearum to changing environments

Deep phenotypic characterization of immunization-induced antibacterial IgG repertoires in mice using a single-antibody bioassay

Cell-length heterogeneity: a population-level solution to growth/virulence trade-offs in the plant pathogen Dickeya dadantii

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About