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Horizontal gene transfer

Plug and play Pig

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 4, pages 570–571 (2006)Cite this article

Production of prodigiosin (Pig) — a red-pigmented secondary metabolite antibiotic — by the important nosocomial pathogen Serratia marcescens is regulated by the integration of multiple signals, including acyl-homoserine lactone quorum sensing (QS). Biosynthetic pig gene clusters are flanked by the cueR and copA genes, but cueR and copA are contiguous in strains that lack a pig cluster. The pig gene cluster might therefore have been acquired by HGT and integrated into the cueR–copA intergenic region. Interestingly, relics of transposable elements found surrounding the QS genes of some Serratia strains might also indicate HGT of the QS locus in this genus.

Research by Coulthurst et al. centred on swapping pig and QS genes between two S. marcescens strains, an environmental Sma 274 isolate, which produces Pig but lacks the global regulatory QS system, and a clinical Sma 12 isolate, which has a functional QS system, but doesn't produce Pig. A Sma-specific phage was used to ferry genes between the chromosomes of these strains.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Coulthurst, S. J. et al. Metabolic and regulatory engineering of Serratia marcescens: mimicking phage-mediated horizontal acquisition of antibiotic biosynthesis and quorum-sensing capacities. Microbiology 152, 1899–1911 (2006)

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  1. Susan Jones
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Jones, S. Plug and play Pig. Nat Rev Microbiol 4, 570–571 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1467

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1467

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