Fatty acid metabolism and the oxidative stress response support bacterial predation
Abstract
Despite growing awareness of their importance in soil ecology, the genetic and physiological traits of bacterial predators are still relatively poorly understood. In the course of a Myxococcus xanthus predator evolution experiment, we identified a class of genotypes leading to enhanced predation against diverse species. RNA-seq analysis demonstrated that this phenotype is linked to the constitutive activation of a predation-specific program. Functional analysis of the mutations accumulated across the evolutionary time in a two-component system and Acyl-CoA-manipulating enzymes revealed the critical roles of fatty acid metabolism and antioxidant gene induction. The former likely adapts the predator to metabolites derived from the prey while the latter protects predatory cells from reactive oxygen species generated by prey cells under stress and released upon lysis during predation. These findings reveal interesting parallels between bacterial predator–prey dynamics and pathogen–host cell interactions.
Article Details
Journal Info
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Authors (8)
Rikesh Jain
Aix-Marseille Université–CNRS UMR 7283, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée and Turing Center for Living Systems
Nguyen-Hung Le
Aix-Marseille Université–CNRS UMR 7283, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée and Turing Center for Living Systems
Lionel Bertaux
Aix-Marseille Université–CNRS UMR 7283, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée
Jean Baudry
Laboratoire Colloïdes et Matériaux Divisés, Institut Chimie, Biologie, Innovation, UMR 8231, École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles ESPCI Paris, CNRS, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
Jérôme Bibette
Laboratoire Colloïdes et Matériaux Divisés, Institut Chimie, Biologie, Innovation, UMR 8231, École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles ESPCI Paris, CNRS, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
Yann Denis
Aix-Marseille Université–CNRS FR3479, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée
Bianca H. Habermann
Aix Marseille University, CNRS, Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille IBDM UMR 7288, Turing Center for Living Systems
Tâm Mignot
Aix-Marseille Université–CNRS UMR 7283, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée and Turing Center for Living Systems