This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chakraborty, S.
Right arrow Articles by Nair, G. B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Chakraborty, S.
Right arrow Articles by Nair, G. B.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Chakraborty, S.
Right arrow Articles by Nair, G. B.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2000, p. 4022-4028, Vol. 66, No. 9
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Virulence Genes in Environmental Strains of Vibrio cholerae

Soumen Chakraborty,1 Asish K. Mukhopadhyay,1 Rupak Kumar Bhadra,2 Amar Nath Ghosh,1 Rupak Mitra,1 Toshio Shimada,3 Shinji Yamasaki,1,4 Shah M. Faruque,5 Yoshifumi Takeda,3 Rita R. Colwell,6,7,* and G. Balakrish Nair1

National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Beliaghata, Calcutta 700 010,1 and Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Calcutta 700 032,2 India; National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama,3 and Research Institute, International Medical Center of Japan,4 Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162, Japan; International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh5; and Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 21202,6 and Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 207427

Received 9 March 2000/Accepted 21 June 2000

The virulence of a pathogen is dependent on a discrete set of genetic determinants and their well-regulated expression. The ctxAB and tcpA genes are known to play a cardinal role in maintaining virulence in Vibrio cholerae, and these genes are believed to be exclusively associated with clinical strains of O1 and O139 serogroups. In this study, we examined the presence of five virulence genes, including ctxAB and tcpA, as well as toxR and toxT, which are involved in the regulation of virulence, in environmental strains of V. cholerae cultured from three different freshwater lakes and ponds in the eastern part of Calcutta, India. PCR analysis revealed the presence of these virulence genes or their homologues among diverse serotypes and ribotypes of environmental V. cholerae strains. Sequencing of a part of the tcpA gene carried by an environmental strain showed 97.7% homology to the tcpA gene of the classical biotype of V. cholerae O1. Strains carrying the tcpA gene expressed the toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP), demonstrated by both autoagglutination analysis and electron microscopy of the TCP pili. Strains carrying ctxAB genes also produced cholera toxin, determined by monosialoganglioside enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and by passage in the ileal loops of rabbits. Thus, this study demonstrates the presence and expression of critical virulence genes or their homologues in diverse environmental strains of V. cholerae, which appear to constitute an environmental reservoir of virulence genes, thereby providing new insights into the ecology of V. cholerae.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 701 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: (703) 306-1000. Fax: (703) 306-0109. E-mail: colwell{at}umbi.umd.edu.


Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2000, p. 4022-4028, Vol. 66, No. 9
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Bag, P. K., Bhowmik, P., Hajra, T. K., Ramamurthy, T., Sarkar, P., Majumder, M., Chowdhury, G., Das, S. C. (2008). Putative Virulence Traits and Pathogenicity of Vibrio cholerae Non-O1, Non-O139 Isolates from Surface Waters in Kolkata, India. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 5635-5644 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Emch, M., Feldacker, C., Yunus, M., Streatfield, P. K., DinhThiem, V., Canh, D. G., Ali, M. (2008). Local Environmental Predictors of Cholera in Bangladesh and Vietnam. Am J Trop Med Hyg 78: 823-832 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Kirschner, A. K. T., Schlesinger, J., Farnleitner, A. H., Hornek, R., Suss, B., Golda, B., Herzig, A., Reitner, B. (2008). Rapid Growth of Planktonic Vibrio cholerae Non-O1/Non-O139 Strains in a Large Alkaline Lake in Austria: Dependence on Temperature and Dissolved Organic Carbon Quality. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 2004-2015 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Pang, B., Yan, M., Cui, Z., Ye, X., Diao, B., Ren, Y., Gao, S., Zhang, L., Kan, B. (2007). Genetic Diversity of Toxigenic and Nontoxigenic Vibrio cholerae Serogroups O1 and O139 Revealed by Array-Based Comparative Genomic Hybridization. J. Bacteriol. 189: 4837-4849 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Fykse, E. M., Skogan, G., Davies, W., Olsen, J. S., Blatny, J. M. (2007). Detection of Vibrio cholerae by Real-Time Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 73: 1457-1466 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Gubala, A. J., Proll, D. F. (2006). Molecular-Beacon Multiplex Real-Time PCR Assay for Detection of Vibrio cholerae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72: 6424-6428 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Matz, C., McDougald, D., Moreno, A. M., Yung, P. Y., Yildiz, F. H., Kjelleberg, S. (2005). Biofilm formation and phenotypic variation enhance predation-driven persistence of Vibrio cholerae. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102: 16819-16824 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Reguera, G., Kolter, R. (2005). Virulence and the Environment: a Novel Role for Vibrio cholerae Toxin-Coregulated Pili in Biofilm Formation on Chitin. J. Bacteriol. 187: 3551-3555 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Binsztein, N., Costagliola, M. C., Pichel, M., Jurquiza, V., Ramirez, F. C., Akselman, R., Vacchino, M., Huq, A., Colwell, R. (2004). Viable but Nonculturable Vibrio cholerae O1 in the Aquatic Environment of Argentina. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 70: 7481-7486 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • O'Shea, Y. A., Reen, F. J., Quirke, A. M., Boyd, E. F. (2004). Evolutionary Genetic Analysis of the Emergence of Epidemic Vibrio cholerae Isolates on the Basis of Comparative Nucleotide Sequence Analysis and Multilocus Virulence Gene Profiles. J. Clin. Microbiol. 42: 4657-4671 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Thompson, F. L., Iida, T., Swings, J. (2004). Biodiversity of Vibrios. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 68: 403-431 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Campos, J., Martinez, E., Marrero, K., Silva, Y., Rodriguez, B. L., Suzarte, E., Ledon, T., Fando, R. (2003). Novel Type of Specialized Transduction for CTX{phi} or Its Satellite Phage RS1 Mediated by Filamentous Phage VGJ{phi} in Vibrio cholerae. J. Bacteriol. 185: 7231-7240 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Jiang, S., Chu, W., Fu, W. (2003). Prevalence of Cholera Toxin Genes (ctxA and zot) among Non-O1/O139 Vibrio cholerae Strains from Newport Bay, California. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69: 7541-7544 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Datta, P. P., Bhadra, R. K. (2003). Cold Shock Response and Major Cold Shock Proteins of Vibrio cholerae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69: 6361-6369 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Faruque, S. M., Zhu, J., Asadulghani, , Kamruzzaman, M., Mekalanos, J. J. (2003). Examination of Diverse Toxin-Coregulated Pilus-Positive Vibrio cholerae Strains Fails To Demonstrate Evidence for Vibrio Pathogenicity Island Phage. Infect. Immun. 71: 2993-2999 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Louis, V. R., Russek-Cohen, E., Choopun, N., Rivera, I. N. G., Gangle, B., Jiang, S. C., Rubin, A., Patz, J. A., Huq, A., Colwell, R. R. (2003). Predictability of Vibrio cholerae in Chesapeake Bay. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69: 2773-2785 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Thompson, F. L., Thompson, C. C., Vicente, A. C. P., Theophilo, G. N. D., Hofer, E., Swings, J. (2003). Genomic Diversity of Clinical and Environmental Vibrio cholerae Strains Isolated in Brazil between 1991 and 2001 as Revealed by Fluorescent Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis. J. Clin. Microbiol. 41: 1946-1950 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Kotetishvili, M., Stine, O. C., Chen, Y., Kreger, A., Sulakvelidze, A., Sozhamannan, S., Morris, J. G. Jr. (2003). Multilocus Sequence Typing Has Better Discriminatory Ability for Typing Vibrio cholerae than Does Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis and Provides a Measure of Phylogenetic Relatedness. J. Clin. Microbiol. 41: 2191-2196 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Li, M., Kotetishvili, M., Chen, Y., Sozhamannan, S. (2003). Comparative Genomic Analyses of the Vibrio Pathogenicity Island and Cholera Toxin Prophage Regions in Nonepidemic Serogroup Strains of Vibrio cholerae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69: 1728-1738 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Faruque, S. M., Kamruzzaman, M., Meraj, I. M., Chowdhury, N., Nair, G. B., Sack, R. B., Colwell, R. R., Sack, D. A. (2003). Pathogenic Potential of Environmental Vibrio cholerae Strains Carrying Genetic Variants of the Toxin-Coregulated Pilus Pathogenicity Island. Infect. Immun. 71: 1020-1025 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Nandi, S., Maiti, D., Saha, A., Bhadra, R. K. (2003). Genesis of variants of Vibrio cholerae O1 biotype El Tor: role of the CTX{phi} array and its position in the genome. Microbiology 149: 89-97 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Karasawa, T., Ito, H., Tsukamoto, T., Yamasaki, S., Kurazono, H., Faruque, S. M., Nair, G. B., Nishibuchi, M., Takeda, Y. (2002). Cloning and Characterization of Genes Encoding Homologues of the B Subunit of Cholera Toxin and the Escherichia coli Heat-Labile Enterotoxin from Clinical Isolates of Citrobacter freundii and E. coli. Infect. Immun. 70: 7153-7155 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Lipp, E. K., Huq, A., Colwell, R. R. (2002). Effects of Global Climate on Infectious Disease: the Cholera Model. Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 15: 757-770 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Zo, Y.-G., Rivera, I. N. G., Russek-Cohen, E., Islam, M. S., Siddique, A. K., Yunus, M., Sack, R. B., Huq, A., Colwell, R. R. (2002). Genomic profiles of clinical and environmental isolates of Vibrio cholerae O1 in cholera-endemic areas of Bangladesh. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99: 12409-12414 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Nair, G. B., Faruque, S. M., Bhuiyan, N. A., Kamruzzaman, M., Siddique, A. K., Sack, D. A. (2002). New Variants of Vibrio cholerae O1 Biotype El Tor with Attributes of the Classical Biotype from Hospitalized Patients with Acute Diarrhea in Bangladesh. J. Clin. Microbiol. 40: 3296-3299 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Sarkar, A., Nandy, R. K., Nair, G. B., Ghose, A. C. (2002). Vibrio Pathogenicity Island and Cholera Toxin Genetic Element-Associated Virulence Genes and Their Expression in Non-O1 Non-O139 Strains of Vibrio cholerae. Infect. Immun. 70: 4735-4742 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Boyd, E. F., Waldor, M. K. (2002). Evolutionary and functional analyses of variants of the toxin-coregulated pilus protein TcpA from toxigenic Vibrio cholerae non-O1/non-O139 serogroup isolates. Microbiology 148: 1655-1666 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Li, M., Shimada, T., Morris, J. G. Jr., Sulakvelidze, A., Sozhamannan, S. (2002). Evidence for the Emergence of Non-O1 and Non-O139 Vibrio cholerae Strains with Pathogenic Potential by Exchange of O-Antigen Biosynthesis Regions. Infect. Immun. 70: 2441-2453 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Lyon, W. J. (2001). TaqMan PCR for Detection of Vibrio cholerae O1, O139, Non-O1, and Non-O139 in Pure Cultures, Raw Oysters, and Synthetic Seawater. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67: 4685-4693 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • CHAKRABORTY, S., GARG, P., RAMAMURTHY, T., THUNGAPATHRA, M., GAUTAM, J.K., KUMAR, C., MAITI, S., YAMASAKI, S., SHIMADA, T., TAKEDA, Y., GHOSH, A., NAIR, G.B. (2001). Comparison of antibiogram, virulence genes, ribotypes and DNA fingerprints of Vibrio cholerae of matching serogroups isolated from hospitalised diarrhoea cases and from the environment during 1997-1998 in Calcutta, India. J Med Microbiol 50: 879-888 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Mukhopadhyay, A. K., Chakraborty, S., Takeda, Y., Nair, G. B., Berg, D. E. (2001). Characterization of VPI Pathogenicity Island and CTX{phi} Prophage in Environmental Strains of Vibrio cholerae. J. Bacteriol. 183: 4737-4746 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Rivera, I. N. G., Chun, J., Huq, A., Sack, R. B., Colwell, R. R. (2001). Genotypes Associated with Virulence in Environmental Isolates of Vibrio cholerae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67: 2421-2429 [Abstract] [Full Text]