Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale School of Medicine, 295 Congress Avenue, New Haven, CT 06536, USA.
Yale Microbial Sciences Institute, P.O. Box 27389, West Haven, CT 06516, USA.
Science. 2023 Mar 17;379(6637):1149-1156. doi: 10.1126/science.abn7229. Epub 2023 Mar 16.
Therapeutic manipulation of the gut microbiota holds great potential for human health. The mechanisms bacteria use to colonize the gut therefore present valuable targets for clinical intervention. We now report that bacteria use phase separation to enhance fitness in the mammalian gut. We establish that the intrinsically disordered region (IDR) of the broadly and highly conserved transcription termination factor Rho is necessary and sufficient for phase separation in vivo and in vitro in the human commensal . Phase separation increases transcription termination by Rho in an IDR-dependent manner. Moreover, the IDR is critical for gene regulation in the gut. Our findings expose phase separation as vital for host-commensal bacteria interactions and relevant for novel clinical applications.
肠道微生物群的治疗性操纵对人类健康具有巨大的潜力。因此,细菌用于定殖肠道的机制为临床干预提供了有价值的靶点。我们现在报告称,细菌利用相分离来提高在哺乳动物肠道中的适应性。我们确定了广泛且高度保守的转录终止因子 Rho 的无序区域(IDR)在体内和体外的人类共生菌中是相分离所必需且充分的。相分离以 IDR 依赖的方式增加 Rho 的转录终止。此外,IDR 对肠道中的基因调控至关重要。我们的发现揭示了相分离对宿主-共生菌相互作用的重要性,并为新的临床应用提供了依据。