Characterization of a new plasmid-like prophage in a pandemic Vibrio parahaemolyticus O3:K6 strain.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a common food-borne pathogen that is normally associated with seafood. In 1996, a pandemic O3:K6 strain abruptly appeared and caused the first pandemic of this pathogen to spread throughout many Asian countries, America, Europe, and Africa. The role of temperate bacteriophages in the evolution of this pathogen is of great interest. In this work, a new temperate phage, VP882, from a pandemic O3:K6 strain of V. parahaemolyticus was purified and characterized after mitomycin C induction. VP882 was a Myoviridae bacteriophage with a polyhedral head and a long rigid tail with a sheath-like structure. It infected and lysed high proportions of V. parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus, and Vibrio cholerae strains. The genome of phage VP882 was sequenced and was 38,197 bp long, and 71 putative open reading frames were identified, of which 27 were putative functional phage or bacterial genes. VP882 had a linear plasmid-like genome with a putative protelomerase gene and cohesive ends. The genome does not integrate into the host chromosome but was maintained as a plasmid in the lysogen. Analysis of the reaction sites of the protelomerases in different plasmid-like phages revealed that VP882 and PhiHAP-1 were highly similar, while N15, PhiKO2, and PY54 made up another closely related group. The presence of DNA adenine methylase and quorum-sensing transcriptional regulators in VP882 may play a specific role in this phage or regulate physiological or virulence-associated traits of the hosts. These genes may also be remnants from the bacterial chromosome following transduction.

Localization and expression of MreB in Vibrio parahaemolyticus under different stresses.

MreB, the homolog of eukaryotic actin, may play a vital role when prokaryotes cope with stress by altering their spatial organization, including their morphology, subcellular architecture, and localization of macromolecules. This study investigates the behavior of MreB in Vibrio parahaemolyticus under various stresses. The behavior of MreB was probed using a yellow fluorescent protein-MreB conjugate in merodiploid strain SC9. Under normal growth conditions, MreB formed helical filaments in exponential-phase cells. The shape of starved or stationary-phase cells changed from rods to small spheroids. The cells differentiated into the viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state with small spherical cells via a "swelling-waning" process. In all cases, drastic remodeling of the MreB cytoskeleton was observed. MreB helices typically were loosened and fragmented into short filaments, arcs, and spots in bacteria under these stresses. The disintegrated MreB exhibited a strong tendency to attach to the cytoplasmic membrane. The expression of mreB generally declined in bacteria in the stationary phase and under starvation but was upregulated during the initial periods of cold shock and VBNC state differentiation and decreased afterwards. Our findings demonstrated the behavior of MreB in the morphological changes of V. parahaemolyticus under intrinsic or extrinsic stresses and may have important implications for studying the cellular stress response and aging.

Dynamic localization of MreB in Vibrio parahaemolyticus and in the ectopic host bacterium Escherichia coli.

MreB, a homolog of eukaryotic actin, participates in morphogenesis, cell division, cell polarity, and chromosome segregation in prokaryotes. In this study, a yellow fluorescent protein conjugate (YFP-MreB(Vp)) was generated to investigate the behavior of MreB in merodiploid strain SC9 of the enteropathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Under normal growth conditions, YFP-MreB(Vp) formed helical filaments with a pitch of 0.64 +/- 0.09 microm in about 85% of exponential-phase cells, and different clusters, relaxed coils, and ring configurations were observed in a small proportion of the cells. Overexpression of YFP-MreB(Vp) substantially altered the structure of the MreB cytoskeleton and resulted in swollen and pleomorphic cells. Disturbing the activities of penicillin-binding proteins or adding magnesium suppressed the morphological distortions. These results indicate that mislocalization of cell wall-synthesizing machinery was responsible for morphological abnormality. By expressing YFP-MreB(Vp) in the ectopic host bacterium Escherichia coli, shrinkage, fragmentation, and annealing of MreB(Vp) filaments were directly observed. This work revealed the dynamic pattern of the localization of YFP-MreB(Vp) in V. parahaemolyticus and its relationship to cell morphogenesis, and the YFP-MreB(Vp)-E. coli system may be used to investigate the dynamic spatial structures of the MreB cytoskeleton in vivo.

Resuscitation of viable but non-culturable Vibrio parahaemolyticus in a minimum salt medium.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is food-borne pathogen prevalent in Asian countries. This work analyzes factors that influence the resuscitation of the viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state in this bacterium. The MMS-0.5% NaCl medium alone limited cell multiplication, and in this medium, resuscitation was successful when the temperature was upshifted to 25 degrees C but not 37 degrees C. Chloramphenicol inhibition experiments revealed that protein synthesis in the first 24 h of temperature upshift was critical in determining the success of the three-day resuscitation period. The VBNC state induction period and the age of the VBNC cells for successful resuscitation were strain-dependent. Results of this work facilitate further physiological and pathological study of the VBNC state in this pathogen.

Morphological changes of Vibrio parahaemolyticus under cold and starvation stresses.

This study addresses morphological changes of Vibrio parahaemolyticus cells during the initial period of stress. Drastic changes occurred in cells under starvation with/without concomitant cold treatment for one to a few days. Under carbon starvation, rod-shaped cells became coccoid by reductive division, which was influenced by glucose/amino acid in the culture medium. Under concomitant cold and carbon starvation, cells entered the viable but nonculturable state and their shape changed from rod-like to coccoid with waning-shape and various aberrantly intermediates, such as club-shaped, budding, club-shaped with budding, dumbbell-shaped and rabbit-ear-like-shaped. Electron microscopy revealed characteristic features in the cells that were concomitantly stressed with cold and starved, such as densely stained peripheral part and lightly stained central part of cytoplasm, and a thick peptidoglycan cell wall in the temperature-upshifted cells. The expression of cytoskeleton genes, mreB, minE and ftsZ, was determined in a real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, and results revealed a substantial decline in expression in cells under starvation (to 0.25 to 0.64 times that of the control) in the first 2 to 3 h, and a rapid upregulated expression in recovering cells. Alteration of the morphology of cells under such stresses may be associated with the expression of these cytoskeleton genes. This work demonstrates the uniqueness of concomitant cold and starvation treatment in V. parahaemolyticus. The details of the morphological changes may facilitate understanding of stress adaptation in bacteria.

Change of protein profiles in the induction of the viable but nonculturable state of Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

This work reports on the metabolic response in the induction of the viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state of the seafood enteropathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus, as determined by analyzing the corresponding change in protein profiles. V. parahaemolyticus ST550 was incubated at 4 degrees C in the Morita mineral salt-0.5% NaCl medium to induce the VBNC state in six weeks. Starving the cells by incubation at 25 degrees C for 24 h prior to 4 degrees C incubation inhibited the cells from entering VBNC state. Protein profiles were determined by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the proteins which were enhanced in the VBNC induction/VBNC state or strongly down-regulated in the starved cells were identified by mass spectrophotometry. The 13 up-regulated proteins are known to be associated with transcription (two homologues of alpha subunit DNA-directed RNA polymerase, phosphoribosylaminoimidazole carboxamide formyltransferase/IMP cyclohydrolase), translation (ribosomal protein S1, two homologues of elongation factor TU, elongation factor EF-G), ATP synthase (F1 alpha subunit), gluconeogenesis-related metabolism (dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase), antioxidants (2 homologues of peroxiredoxins, AhpC/Tsa family) and a conserved hypothetical protein with unknown function. Expressions of the genes encoding four of these proteins were at high levels in the second week of VBNC induction; declined afterwards, and were down-regulated in the starved cells. These proteins may play important roles in the induction or maintenance of VBNC V. parahaemolyticus. The results of this investigation improve our understanding of the metabolic activities in the VBNC state of bacteria.

Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis of Vibrio vulnificus strains isolated from Taiwan and the United States.

Vibrio vulnificus is a marine bacterium that causes human wound infections and septicemia with a high mortality rate. V. vulnificus strains from different clinical and environmental sources or geographic regions have been successfully characterized by ribotyping and several other methods. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is a highly discriminative method, but previous studies suggested that it was not suitable for examining the correlation of V. vulnificus strains from different origins. We employed PFGE to determine its efficacy for characterizing V. vulnificus strains from different geographic regions, characterizing a total of 153 strains from clinical and environmental origins from the United States and Taiwan after SfiI or NotI digestion. V. vulnificus strains showed a high intraspecific diversity by PFGE after SfiI or NotI digestion, and about 12% of the strains could not be typed by the use of either of these enzymes. For PFGE with SfiI digestion, most of the clinical and environmental strains from the United States were grouped into cluster A, while the strains from Taiwan were grouped into other clusters. Clinical strains from the United States showed a higher level of genetic homogeneity than clinical strains from Taiwan, and environmental strains from both regions showed a similarly high level of heterogeneity. PFGE with NotI digestion was useful for studying the correlation of clinical strains from the United States and Taiwan, but it was not suitable for analyzing environmental strains. The results showed that PFGE with SfiI digestion may be used to characterize V. vulnificus strains from distant geographic regions, with NotI being a recommended alternative enzyme.