A deep‐sea bacterium related to coastal marine pathogens

Aide Lasa (1) , Manon Auguste (1) , Alberto Lema (2) , Caterina Oliveri (1) , Alessio Borello (1) , Elisa Taviani (1) , Guido Bonello (1) , Lapo Doni (1) , Andrew D Millard (3) , Maxime Bruto (4) , Jesus L Romalde (2) , Michail Yakimov (5) , Teresa Balbi (1) , Carla Pruzzo (1) , Laura Canesi (1) , Luigi Vezzulli (1)

1 DISTAV - Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra dell'Ambiente e della Vita
2 USC - Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [Spain]
3 University of Leicester
4 LBI2M - Laboratoire de Biologie Intégrative des Modèles Marins
5 IRBIM - Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology

Evolution of virulence traits from adaptation to environmental niches other than the host is probably a common feature of marine microbial pathogens, whose knowledge might be crucial to understand their emergence and pathogenetic potential. Here we report genome sequence analysis of a novel marine bacterial species, Vibrio bathopelagicus sp. nov., isolated from warm bathypelagic waters (3309m depth) of the Mediterranean Sea. Interestingly, V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. is closely related to coastal Vibrio strains pathogenic to marine bivalves. V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. genome encodes genes involved in environmental adaptations to the deep-sea but also in virulence, such as the R5.7 element, MARTX toxin cluster, Type VI secretion system and zinc-metalloprotease, previously associated with Vibrio infection in farmed oysters. The results of functional in vitro assays on immunocytes (hemocytes) of the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas, and of the early larval development assay in Mytilus support strong toxicity of V. bathopelagicus sp. nov. towards bivalves. V. bathopelagicus sp. nov., isolated from a remote Mediterranean bathypelagic site, is an example of a planktonic marine bacterium with genotypic and phenotypic traits associated with animal pathogenicity, that might have played an evolutionary role in the origin of coastal marine pathogens.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Aide Lasa, Manon Auguste, Alberto Lema, Caterina Oliveri, Alessio Borello, et al.. A deep‐sea bacterium related to coastal marine pathogens. Environmental Microbiology, 2021, ⟨10.1111/1462-2920.15629⟩. ⟨hal-03253974⟩