TEDA Institute of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
Key Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology and Technology, Nankai University, Ministry of Education, Tianjin, China.
Gut Microbes. 2022 Jan-Dec;14(1):2143216. doi: 10.1080/19490976.2022.2143216.
(), one of the most important bacterial pathogens in history, is a gram-negative motile bacterium that causes fatal pandemic disease in humans via oral ingestion of contaminated water or food. This process involves the coordinated actions of numerous regulatory factors. The MerR family regulators, which are widespread in prokaryotes, have been reported to be associated with pathogenicity. However, the role of the MerR family regulators in virulence remains unknown. Our study systematically investigated the influence of MerR family regulators on intestinal colonization of within the host. Among the five MerR family regulators, MlrA was found to significantly promote the colonization capacity of in infant mice. Furthermore, we revealed that MlrA increases bacterial intestinal colonization by directly enhancing the expression of , which encodes one of the most important virulence factors in , by binding to its promoter region. In addition, we revealed that during infection, is activated by anaerobic signals in the small intestine of the host through Fnr. In summary, our findings reveal a MlrA-mediated virulence regulation pathway that enables to sense environmental signals at the infection site to precisely activate virulence gene expression, thus providing useful insights into the pathogenic mechanisms of .
（），历史上最重要的细菌病原体之一，是一种革兰氏阴性能动细菌，通过口服污染的水或食物在人类中引起致命的大流行疾病。这一过程涉及到许多调节因子的协调作用。MerR 家族调节剂广泛存在于原核生物中，据报道与致病性有关。然而，MerR 家族调节剂在毒力中的作用仍然未知。我们的研究系统地研究了 MerR 家族调节剂对宿主中 肠道定植的影响。在五个 MerR 家族调节剂中，MlrA 被发现显著促进了婴儿小鼠中 的定植能力。此外，我们揭示了 MlrA 通过直接增强 编码的表达来增加细菌肠道定植， 编码 中最重要的毒力因子之一，通过结合其启动子区域。此外，我们揭示了在感染过程中，Fnr 通过在宿主小肠中产生的厌氧信号激活 。总之，我们的研究结果揭示了一种 MlrA 介导的毒力调节途径，使 能够在感染部位感知环境信号，精确激活毒力基因表达，从而为 提供了有用的致病机制见解。
