quorum sensing primes the oxidative stress response in the insect endosymbiont, sodalis glossinidius群体感应质数的氧化应激反应在昆虫内共生体,sodalis glossinidius.pdfVIP

Quorum Sensing Primes the Oxidative Stress Response in the Insect Endosymbiont, Sodalis glossinidius Mauricio H. Pontes*, Markus Babst, Robert Lochhead, Kelly Oakeson, Kari Smith, Colin Dale Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America Abstract Background: Sodalis glossinidius, a maternally transmitted bacterial endosymbiont of tsetse flies (Glossina spp.), uses an acylated homoserine lactone (AHL)-based quorum sensing system to modulate gene expression in accordance with bacterial cell density. The S. glossinidius quorum sensing system relies on the function of two regulatory proteins; SogI (a LuxI homolog) synthesizes a signaling molecule, characterized as N-(3-oxohexanoyl) homoserine lactone (OHHL), and SogR1 (a LuxR homolog) interacts with OHHL to modulate transcription of specific target genes. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used a tiling microarray to analyze the S. glossinidius transcriptome in the presence and absence of exogenous OHHL. The major finding is that OHHL increases transcription of a large number of genes that are known to be involved in the oxidative stress response. We also show that the obligate symbiont of the rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae (SOPE), maintains copies of the quorum sensing regulatory genes that are found in S. glossinidius. Molecular evolutionary analyses indicate that these sequences are evolving under stabilizing selection, consistent with the maintenance of their functions in the SOPE symbiosis. Finally, the expression studies in S. glossinidius also reveal that quorum sensing regulates the expression of a cryptic, degenerate gene (carA) that arose from an ancient deletion in the last common ancestor of S. glossinidius and SOPE. Conclusions/Significance: This oxid