One of the best-studied examples of symbiosis is the colonization of the light organ of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, by the bioluminescent bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Now, Brooks et al. have carried out a forward genetic screen to identify bacterial factors involved in this process. The authors mutagenized V. fischeri by insertion sequencing and analysed a library of over 41,000 unique insertions before and after colonization of 1,500 squid hatchlings. This strategy identified several genes involved in colonization, including the gene encoding the cytoplasmic chaperone DnaJ. Notably, a bacterial mutant lacking dnaJ was impaired in its ability to form biofilms, which are known to be crucial for squid colonization. Future studies are needed to clarify how this bacterial chaperone is involved in V. fischeri biofilm formation.
References
Brooks, J. F. 2nd et al. Global discovery of colonization determinants in the squid symbiont Vibrio fischeri. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1415957111 (2014)
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Nunes-Alves, C. Vibrio genes involved in squid colonization. Nat Rev Microbiol 13, 3 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3414
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3414
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