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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2003, p. 4648-4656, Vol. 185, No. 15
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.15.4648-4656.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Using a DNA Microarray To Investigate the Distribution of Insect Virulence Factors in Strains of Photorhabdus Bacteria
Judit Marokhazi,1,2 Nicholas Waterfield,1 Gaelle LeGoff,1 Edward Feil,1 Richard Stabler,3 Jason Hinds,3 Andras Fodor,4 and Richard H. ffrench-Constant1*
Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY,1
Bacterial Microarray Group, Department of Medical Microbiology, St George's Hospital Medical School, London, SW17 0RE, United Kingdom,3
Departments of Biochemistry,2
Genetics, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary4
Received 19 February 2003/
Accepted 5 May 2003

ABSTRACT
Photorhabdus is an insect-pathogenic bacterium in which oral
toxicity to insects is found in two distinct taxonomic groups.
Using a DNA microarray and comparative genomics, we show that
oral toxicity is associated with toxin complex genes
tcaABC and that this locus can be mobilized or deleted within different
strains.

TEXT
DNA microarrays have been used to look at the relatedness of
strains of bacteria pathogenic to humans (
10,
15). Arrays from
one strain of bacteria are useful in identifying genes absent,
or highly divergent, in unsequenced test strains (
15). The data
obtained are restricted to the genes present in the reference
strain; however, comparisons of the similarity of unknown genomes
to the reference strain can be made (
6). Further, the presence,
absence, or divergence of specific genes can be correlated with
phenotypes either shared by, or lacking in, one or another of
the strains. Although arrays have been used to study obligate
symbionts of insects (
1,
2), here we study an insect pathogen.
Photorhabdus bacteria are insect pathogens belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae (11). The bacteria reside in the guts of nematodes that invade insects and are released directly into the open blood system of the insect. They replicate within and kill the insect host (7) by using insecticidal toxins such as the toxin complexes (Tcs) (20) and the makes caterpillars floppy (Mcf) (5) toxin. Sequencing of different Photorhabdus genomes has confirmed that they contain a wide range of putative virulence factors, including toxins, exoenzymes, and hemolysins (7). We are interested in examining the relatedness of the genomes of orally toxic and nontoxic strains, with specific reference to the genes involved in oral toxicity, the tc genes. The tc genes are members of a large gene family and are found in multiple copies in individual Photorhabdus genomes (20). Four different family members, tca, tcb, tcc, and tcd, have been described on the basis of a description of the first four loci cloned from Photorhabdus luminescens strain W14 (3). Genetic knockout of either tca or tcd greatly reduces the oral toxicity of the resulting supernatant in the associated W14 mutants (3). Here we determine the phylogeny of orally toxic and nontoxic strains via analysis of their 16S DNA sequences (9) in order to test the simplest hypothesis that oral toxicity is found in a single related group of strains. We also hybridize genomic DNA from each strain to a microarray carrying 96 putative virulence factor genes from the orally toxic Photorhabdus strain W14 in order to investigate the minimal subset of tc genes required for oral toxicity.
Oral toxicity is found in two separate groups.
The oral toxicity of the strain supernatants (Table 1) was assessed (19), and the oral toxicity of the washed bacterial cells was examined alongside that of the supernatant itself. Supernatants causing a 50% or greater reduction in growth at 7 days, relative to that in broth-only controls (data not shown), were classed as orally toxic. 16S ribosomal DNA PCR was performed (9), products were sequenced, and a well-supported neighbor-joining tree was constructed (Fig. 1). This phylogeny is very similar to that determined by others using a neighbor-joining method (17). The six orally toxic strains fall into two distinct groups. The first (IS5, EG2, IND, and W14 itself) lies within the previously recognized Photorhabdus luminescens subsp. akhurstii subspecies. The second (Hb1 and Hm1) represents a different subgroup, Photorhabdus luminescens subsp. luminescens. Each of the four nontoxic strains occupies its own independent taxonomic group. This analysis also shows that some other strains do not fit readily within the existing classification (labeled "Photorhabdus sp." in Fig. 1); however, their likely reclassification is not discussed here.
Conserved and variable genes in the array analysis.
We cohybridized labeled genomic DNA from the nine
Photorhabdus test strains with labeled genomic DNA from the control strain,
W14, against a 96-gene microarray based on likely virulence
factors from the orally toxic strain W14. The genes were divided
into those that were "conserved" (values between 2 and 0.5 for
all strains) and those that were "variable" (values under 0.5
for some strains) between strains (Fig.
2). Noting the limitations
of fixed cutoff points for presence-absence prediction (
14)
we confirmed the predicted results of the array via sequence
data. Only one locus, an erythrocyte lysis protein 2-like gene,
appears to be unique to W14, whereas all the other genes occur
in one or more of the
Photorhabdus strains studied. Thus, the
lux genes, producing light, a phenotype common to all
Photorhabdus bacteria (
12), are found in all strains. A series of putative
virulence factors also appear conserved in most or all strains,
including the toxin-encoding gene
mcf1 (
5),
rtxA1- and
rtxA2-like
genes, the operon encoding the
prtA protease, and an attachment
and invasion locus (
ail) homolog (
7). The type III secretion
system (
18), often associated with virulence in other gram-negative
bacteria (
13), is also present in all strains. Other conserved
genes include those encoding catalase, chitinase, ferrochelatase,
and flagellae.
Variable genes include those encoding bacteriocins, toxins and
hemolysins, insertion elements, and pili, as well as genes involved
in iron acquisition. The lumicins are novel bacteriocins described
from
Photorhabdus strain W14 (
16). The lumicin loci consist
of killer protein genes followed by multiple mixed-type immunity
genes, whose role is to counter the effect of the killer protein
on the host cell. Within W14 there are four predicted loci,
lum1,
lum2,
lum3, and
lum4 (
16), of which the array predicts
lum1 and
lum2 to be variable and
lum3 to be conserved between
strains (Fig.
2). Comparison of the W14 and TT01
lum1 sequences
(Fig.
3) shows that while the
lum1B E4-type immunity protein
gene is conserved between the two strains, the killer protein
itself (
lum1A) and the
lum1C S3-type immunity protein genes
are divergent. Divergence in killer protein and immunity protein
sequences between strains is expected in the likely presence
of intense interstrain competition within the insect host (
16).
Some toxin and hemolysin-hemagglutinin genes are also variable
between strains. These include the
pnf gene, encoding a
Photorhabdus necrotizing factor, which is found within a recently acquired
region of the W14 genome (
18) that is absent from TT01, and
the
palA and
palB genes, encoding a hemolysin-hemagglutinin
and its export activator (
18). In W14 (Fig.
3),
palBA is immediately
downstream of the
mcf1 toxin gene and adjacent to a Phe tRNA
(
18), whereas in TT01 (Fig.
3),
palBA is deleted from the equivalent
location, as predicted. In contrast, a second two-component
hemolysin locus,
phlAB (
4), is predicted to be similar in all
strains and indeed to be potentially duplicated in strain Hm.
The
mrp-like pili and the PhfS fimbrial major subunit gene show
a gradual change in hybridization ratio across strains, suggesting
that they are present in all strains but may diverge in sequence
(
18). Finally, the
Photorhabdus irp-like genes (
8), encoding
yersiniabactin biosynthetic protein homologs, predicted to synthesize
an iron-scavenging siderophore, are present in all but strains
K122 and P7.
Oral toxicity and the tc genes.
The tc genes are variable genes (Fig. 2) whose distribution is strikingly split between orally toxic and nontoxic strains (Fig. 4). Orally toxic strains carry all three genes in the tca operon (tcaA, tcaB, and tcaC), whereas those lacking toxicity lack tcaA and tcaB. The genes of the tca operon are the only genes to show a perfect correlation with oral toxicity; genes from the tcb, tcc, and tcd operons are all variable across orally toxic strains.
For the
tca locus (Fig.
5), a comparison of W14 and TT01 shows
two important findings. First, the W14
tcaABC operon is absent
from the equivalent location in TT01. Second, a
tca-like locus
is present elsewhere in TT01 but lacks most of
tcaA and
tcaB,
which have been deleted, and retains only a
tcaC1-like gene.
These observations confirm that the presence of
tcaAB is necessary
for the oral toxicity of the bacterial supernatant. Second,
the fact that
tca-like loci can be found at different locations
in different genomes supports the concept that the
tca locus
is mobile, as suggested by the presence of either a transposase
(in W14) or an integration protein (in TT01) adjacent to the
tca-like locus (Fig.
5).
For the
tcb locus (Fig.
6), the suggestion that
tcbA is lacking
from TT01 is again confirmed by analysis of the genomic sequence:
tcbA is deleted from the equivalent location in TT01, and a
transposase is left in its place. Again comparing W14 and TT01,
the array suggests that the
tcc locus should be completely conserved,
as supported by an examination of the genomic sequence (Fig.
3). Finally, for
tcd, the genomic sequence (Fig.
7) confirms
that all the tc genes of the island are present in both W14
and TT01, including both
lysR-like regulators. Further, the
predicted loss of
tcdA4 in group 2 orally toxic strains is confirmed
by an examination of this locus in the Hb strain. The array
even predicts the loss of
pdl1 and
pdl2 from within the
tcd island of TT01, which, again, is confirmed by the sequence (Fig.
7). The localized deletion of
tcdA4 and the apparent rearrangements
mediated by
tccC-like genes support the hypothesis that the
tcd genes are encompassed in an unstable pathogenicity island.
However, the consistent maintenance of four genetic elements
within this island (
tcdA2,
tcdB2, a
gp13-like holin, and the
conserved region of
tccC3), and the conserved organization of
similar
tcd-like genes in other bacteria (such as
sepA,
sepB,
orf4, and
sepC in
Serratia spp.), suggests that these genes
form an invariant, but not orally toxic, core.
Our previous analysis of strain W14 shows that either
tca or
tcd can independently contribute to oral toxicity. Thus, plasmid
clones of either
tca or
tcd from W14 confer recombinant oral
toxicity when expressed in other, non-orally toxic
Photorhabdus strains, such as K122. These data are consistent with the present
observation that the presence or absence of
tcaAB is perfectly
correlated with the toxicity of the supernatant. However, all
the tc genes within the
tcd island are also present in some
strains, such as TT01 (Fig.
7), which lack orally toxic supernatants.
To investigate the apparent lack of oral toxicity associated
with
tcd in TT01, we examined the toxicity of the bacterial
cells independently of their supernatant and found that toxicity
is associated with the cells rather than the supernatant (Fig.
8). Confirmation that this novel cell-associated toxicity is
tcd related now requires knockout or heterologous expression
of this locus. In conclusion, even a very limited microarray
can provide a powerful predictive tool for correlating observed
phenotypes with bacterial genotypes. Similar microarrays may
therefore be useful in investigating other
Photorhabdus phenotypes
involved either in insect pathogenicity or in symbiosis with
the nematode hosts of these bacteria.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by grants to R. H. f.-C. from the Exploiting
Genomics Initiative of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council of the United Kingdom and by a Marie Curie
Ph.D. training grant to J.M. We also acknowledge The Wellcome
Trust for funding the Bacterial Microarray Group at St George's
Hospital Medical School under its Functional Genomics Resources
Initiative.
We thank the laboratories of David Clarke and Stuart Reynolds for useful discussions.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, United Kingdom. Phone: 44 1225 386261. Fax: 44 1225 386779. E-mail:
bssrfc{at}bath.ac.uk.


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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2003, p. 4648-4656, Vol. 185, No. 15
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.15.4648-4656.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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