RT Journal Article
T1 A deep-sea bacterium related to coastal marine pathogens
A1 Lasa González, Aide
A1 Lema, Alberto
A1 López Romalde, Jesús
A1 Vezzulli, Luigi
AB Evolution of virulence traits from adaptation to environmental niches other than the host is probably a common feature of marine microbial pathogens, whose knowledge might be crucial to understand their emergence and pathogenetic potential. Here, we report genome sequence analysis of a novel marine bacterial species, Vibrio bathopelagicus sp. nov., isolated from warm bathypelagic waters (3309 m depth) of the Mediterranean Sea. Interestingly, V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. is closely related to coastal Vibrio strains pathogenic to marine bivalves. V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. genome encodes genes involved in environmental adaptation to the deep-sea but also in virulence, such as the R5.7 element, MARTX toxin cluster, Type VI secretion system and zinc-metalloprotease, previously associated with Vibrio infections in farmed oysters. The results of functional in vitro assays on immunocytes (haemocytes) of the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas, and of the early larval development assay in Mytilus support strong toxicity of V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. towards bivalves. V. bathopelagicus sp. nov., isolated from a remote Mediterranean bathypelagic site, is an example of a planktonic marine bacterium with genotypic and phenotypic traits associated with animal pathogenicity, which might have played an evolutionary role in the origin of coastal marine pathogens.
PB Wiley
SN 1462-2912
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46807
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46807
LA eng
NO Lasa, A., Auguste, M., Lema, A., Oliveri, C., Borello, A., Taviani, E., Bonello, G., Doni, L., Millard, A.D., Bruto, M., Romalde, J.L., Yakimov, M., Balbi, T., Pruzzo, C., Canesi, L. and Vezzulli, L. (2021), A deep-sea bacterium related to coastal marine pathogens. Environ Microbiol, 23: 5349-5363. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15629
NO This work was funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), PRIN 2017 ‘Emergence of virulence and antibiotic-resistance vectors in coastal and deep-sea marine environments and analysis of the mechanisms and conditions underlying their spread and evolution’, code: 201728ZA49_002. Andrew Millard was supported by Medical Research Council (MR/L015080/1). A. Lasa acknowledges Xunta de Galicia for the Posdoctoral fellowship (ED481B 2017/054) of the ‘Axudas da movilidade A de apoio á etapa posdoutoral 2017’.
DS Minerva
RD 22 may 2026