Abstract
Bacterial cooperation and antagonism mediated by secretion systems are among the ways in which bacteria interact with one another. Here we report the discovery of an antagonistic property of a type IV secretion system (T4SS) sourced from a conjugative plasmid, RP4, using engineering approaches. We scrutinized the genetic determinants and suggested that this antagonistic activity is independent of molecular cargos, while we also elucidated the resistance genes. We further showed that a range of Gram-negative bacteria and a mixed bacterial population can be eliminated by this T4SS-dependent antagonism. Finally, we showed that such an antagonistic property is not limited to T4SS sourced from RP4, rather it can also be observed in a T4SS originated from another conjugative plasmid, namely R388. Our results are the first demonstration of conjugative T4SS-dependent antagonism between Gram-negative bacteria on the genetic level and provide the foundation for future mechanistic studies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 499 |
| Journal | Communications Biology |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2024 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This research was financially supported by Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) and Chemical Engineering Department (TAMU) start-up funds, T3 grant (TAMU), and NIH grant (Award No. R35GM146984) to X. Zhu. Texas A&M University Graduate Diversity Excellence Fellowship in Genetics supports L. Gordils-Valentin partially. We acknowledge James J. Collins and Allison J. Lopatkin for the early collaboration on this project and for gifts of RP4, R388, R6K, and E. coli DA32838. We thank Wenjun Zhang for the generous gift of E. coli BW25113/pIJ790, pUZ8002, and pIB139. All data were plotted using GraphPad Prism, while Figs. b–d, b, a, c, and were created with BioRender.com ( https://www.biorender.com/ ). This research was financially supported by Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) and Chemical Engineering Department (TAMU) start-up funds, T3 grant (TAMU), and NIH grant (Award No. R35GM146984) to X. Zhu. Texas A&M University Graduate Diversity Excellence Fellowship in Genetics supports L. Gordils-Valentin partially. We acknowledge James J. Collins and Allison J. Lopatkin for the early collaboration on this project and for gifts of RP4, R388, R6K, and E. coli DA32838. We thank Wenjun Zhang for the generous gift of E. coli BW25113/pIJ790, pUZ8002, and pIB139. All data were plotted using GraphPad Prism, while Figs. 1 b–d, 2 b, 3 a, 3 c, and 4e were created with BioRender.com (https://www.biorender.com/).