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Anaerobic choline metabolism in microcompartments promotes growth and swarming of Proteus mirabilis

Jameson, Eleanor, Fu, Tiantian, Brown, Ian R., Paszkiewicz, Konrad, Purdy, Kevin J., Frank, Stefanie, Chen, Yin (2015) Anaerobic choline metabolism in microcompartments promotes growth and swarming of Proteus mirabilis. Environmental Microbiology, 18 (9). pp. 2886-2898. ISSN 1462-2912. (doi:10.1111/1462-2920.13059) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:58173)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.13059

Abstract

Gammaproteobacteria are important gut microbes but only persist at low levels in the healthy gut. The ecology of Gammaproteobacteria in the gut environment is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that choline is an important growth substrate for representatives of Gammaproteobacteria. Using Proteus mirabilis as a model, we investigate the role of choline metabolism and demonstrate that the cutC gene, encoding a choline-trimethylamine lyase, is essential for choline degradation to trimethylamine by targeted mutagenesis of cutC and subsequent complementation experiments. Proteus mirabilis can rapidly utilize choline to enhance growth rate and cell yield in broth culture. Importantly, choline also enhances swarming-associated colony expansion of P. mirabilis under anaerobic conditions on a solid surface. Comparative transcriptomics demonstrated that choline not only induces choline-trimethylamine lyase but also genes encoding shell proteins for the formation of bacterial microcompartments. Subsequent analyses by transmission electron microscopy confirmed the presence of such novel microcompartments in cells cultivated in liquid broth and hyper-flagellated swarmer cells from solid medium. Together, our study reveals choline metabolism as an adaptation strategy for P. mirabilis and contributes to better understand the ecology of this bacterium in health and disease.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/1462-2920.13059
Subjects: Q Science
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Biosciences
Depositing User: Susan Davies
Date Deposited: 27 Oct 2016 09:44 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 11:01 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/58173 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Brown, Ian R..

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Frank, Stefanie.

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