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Volume 155, Issue 7

The extracellular metalloprotease of directly inhibits its extracellular haemolysin Free

Abstract

is a re-emerging pathogen of molluscs that secretes a variety of extracellular products (ECPs), including a metalloprotease and a cytolysin/haemolysin. Previously, we reported that the haemolysin locus consists of two ORFs ( and ), similar to that of the homologous haemolysin genes ( and ) found in . Here, we demonstrate that the concomitant expression of both genes resulted in significantly higher haemolytic activity than the gene alone. In addition, we created a VthAB mutant strain of that was virtually devoid of haemolytic activity in liquid media. Interestingly, significant production of an additional haemolysin(s) was observed on blood plates. Moreover, we have previously reported that in , proteolytic and haemolytic activities are inversely produced during bacterial growth. Here, we study this correlation in more detail and present evidence that the VtpA metalloprotease inhibits haemolytic activity in culture supernatants, based on the following evidence: (i) loss of metalloprotease activity by either mutation or EDTA inhibition resulted in increased haemolytic activity; (ii) overexpression of the gene resulted in decreased haemolytic activity; (iii) purified VtpA metalloprotease directly diminished haemolytic activity by purified VthA haemolysin. Importantly, we found not only that gene expression remained high throughout growth but also that there were no dramatic differences in gene expression between the parent and VtpA mutant strains. Thus, our results strongly suggest that the metalloprotease directly targets its haemolysin.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Revised:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): ECPs, extracellular products
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2009-07-01
2024-04-18
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The extracellular metalloprotease of Vibrio tubiashii directly inhibits its extracellular haemolysin
Microbiology 155, 2296 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.028605-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.028605-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.028605-0
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