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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2008, p. 44-51, Vol. 74, No. 1
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01412-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Conservation of the Chitin Utilization Pathway in the Vibrionaceae{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Dana E. Hunt,1 Dirk Gevers,1,2 Nisha M. Vahora,1 and Martin F. Polz1*

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139,1 Laboratory of Microbiology, University of Gent, Gent, Belgium2

Received 25 June 2007/ Accepted 5 October 2007

Vibrionaceae are regarded as important marine chitin degraders, and attachment to chitin regulates important biological functions; yet, the degree of chitin pathway conservation in Vibrionaceae is unknown. Here, a core chitin degradation pathway is proposed based on comparison of 19 Vibrio and Photobacterium genomes with a detailed metabolic map assembled for V. cholerae from published biochemical, genomic, and transcriptomic results. Further, to assess whether chitin degradation is a conserved property of Vibrionaceae, a set of 54 strains from 32 taxa were tested for the ability to grow on various forms of chitin. All strains grew on N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), the monomer of chitin. The majority of isolates grew on {alpha} (crab shell) and β (squid pen) chitin and contained chitinase A (chiA) genes. chiA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis suggest that this gene is a good indicator of chitin metabolism but appears subject to horizontal gene transfer and duplication. Overall, chitin metabolism appears to be a core function of Vibrionaceae, but individual pathway components exhibit dynamic evolutionary histories.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 48-417, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. Phone: (617) 253-7128. Fax: (617) 258-8850. E-mail: mpolz{at}mit.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 12 October 2007.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2008, p. 44-51, Vol. 74, No. 1
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01412-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Leisner, J. J., Larsen, M. H., Jorgensen, R. L., Brondsted, L., Thomsen, L. E., Ingmer, H. (2008). Chitin Hydrolysis by Listeria spp., Including L. monocytogenes. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 3823-3830 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hunt, D. E., David, L. A., Gevers, D., Preheim, S. P., Alm, E. J., Polz, M. F. (2008). Resource Partitioning and Sympatric Differentiation Among Closely Related Bacterioplankton. Science 320: 1081-1085 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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