Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2000 Apr;68(4):1967-74.
doi: 10.1128/IAI.68.4.1967-1974.2000.

Mutations in the extracellular protein secretion pathway genes (eps) interfere with rugose polysaccharide production in and motility of Vibrio cholerae

A Ali  1 , J A Johnson, A A Franco, D J Metzger, T D Connell, J G Morris Jr, S Sozhamannan
Affiliations

Mutations in the extracellular protein secretion pathway genes (eps) interfere with rugose polysaccharide production in and motility of Vibrio cholerae

A Ali et al. Infect Immun. 2000 Apr.

Erratum in

  • Infect Immun 2000 Jun;68(6):3792

Abstract

Vibrio cholerae is the causal organism of the diarrheal disease cholera. The rugose variant of V. cholerae is associated with the secretion of an exopolysaccharide. The rugose polysaccharide has been shown to confer increased resistance to a variety of agents, such as chlorine, bioacids, and oxidative and osmotic stresses. It also promotes biofilm formation, thereby increasing the survival of the bacteria in the aquatic environments. Here we show that the extracellular protein secretion system (gene designated eps) is involved directly or indirectly in the production of rugose polysaccharide. A TnphoA insertion in epsD gene of the eps operon abolished the production of rugose polysaccharide, reduced the secretion of cholera toxin and hemolysin, and resulted in a nonmotile phenotype. We have constructed defined mutations of the epsD and epsE genes that affected these phenotypes and complemented these defects by plasmid clones of the respective wild-type genes. These results suggest a major role for the eps system in pathogenesis and environmental survival of V. cholerae.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1
FIG. 1
The eps operon of V. cholerae. The eps cluster contains the genes epsC to epsN, and the entire region is 12,077 bp in length. The transcriptional orientation of the eps cluster is indicated by the arrow below the genes. The site of the TnphoA insertion in epsD is indicated by a filled circle, and those of the in-frame Kanr cassettes are indicated by the filled diamonds. A 146-bp deletion in the epsE gene at the site of Kanr insertion is indicated by the broken box.
FIG. 2
FIG. 2
(A) Smooth and rugose colony morphologies of the wild-type and mutant strains. The various strains were grown to different times, as indicated, in LB agar plates with or without the respective antibiotics. (B) Strain AA1 (epsE::Kanr) and the complemented strain (epsE::Kanr/pAA42) after overnight growth.
FIG. 3
FIG. 3
Swarming behavior of wild-type and mutant V. cholerae strains on motility agar plates. 1, N16961 R (wild type); 2, NS1 (epsD::TnphoA); 3, AA10 (epsD::Kanr); 4, AA10/pDSK-2 (epsD+); 5, AA1 (epsE::Kanr); 6, AA1/pAA42 Tetr (epsE+)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Altschul S F, Madden T L, Schaffer A A, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, Lipman D J. Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 1997;25:3389–3402. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Beck von Bodman S, Farrand S K. Capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis and pathogenicity in Erwinia stewartii require induction by an N-acylhomoserine lactone autoinducer. J Bacteriol. 1995;177:5000–5008. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Berg D E. Transposon Tn5. In: Berg D E, Howe M M, editors. Mobile DNA. Washington, D.C.: American Society for Microbiology; 1989. pp. 185–210.
    1. Cameron D N, Khambaty F M, Wachsmuth I K, Tauxe R V, Barrett T J. Molecular characterization of Vibrio cholerae O1 strains by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. J Clin Microbiol. 1994;32:1685–1690. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Connell T D, Metzger D J, Wang M, Jobling M G, Holmes R K. Initial studies of the structural signal for extracellular transport of cholera toxin and other proteins recognized by Vibrio cholerae. Infect Immun. 1995;63:4091–4098. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources