1887

Abstract

bacteria have a dual lifestyle: they are mutualistic symbionts to many species of nematodes and are pathogens to a wide array of insects. Previous studies have shown that virulence of spp. pairs decreases when the nematodes associate with non-cognate bacterial strains. However, the virulence of the strains alone has not been fully investigated. In this study, we characterized the virulence of nine strains in and and performed a comparative genomic analysis to correlate observed phenotypes with strain genotypes. Two strains were found to be highly virulent against the tested insect hosts, while three strains displayed attenuated insect virulence. Comparative genomic analyses revealed the presence of several clusters present only in virulent strains, including a predicted type VI secretion system (T6SS). We performed intra-species-competition assays, and showed that the virulent T6SS strains generally outcompeted the less virulent T6SS strains. Thus, we speculate that the T6SS in may be another addition to the arsenal of antibacterial mechanisms expressed by these bacteria in an insect, where it could potentially play three key roles: (1) competition against the insect host microbiota; (2) protection of the insect cadaver from necrotrophic microbial competitors; and (3) outcompeting other species and/or strains when co-infections occur.

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2017-04-01
2024-03-29
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