1. Genetics and Genomics
  2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Abundant toxin-related genes in the genomes of beneficial symbionts from deep-sea hydrothermal vent mussels

  1. Lizbeth Sayavedra
  2. Manuel Kleiner
  3. Ruby Ponnudurai
  4. Silke Wetzel
  5. Eric Pelletier
  6. Valerie Barbe
  7. Nori Satoh
  8. Eiichi Shoguchi
  9. Dennis Fink
  10. Corinna Breusing
  11. Thorsten BH Reusch
  12. Philip Rosenstiel
  13. Markus B Schilhabel
  14. Dörte Becher
  15. Thomas Schweder
  16. Stephanie Markert
  17. Nicole Dubilier
  18. Jillian M Petersen  Is a corresponding author
  1. Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany
  2. Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University, Germany
  3. Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, France
  4. University of Évry-Val d'Essonne, France
  5. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
  6. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany
  7. Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Germany
  8. Institute of Marine Biotechnology, Germany
  9. University of Bremen, Germany
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966
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Cite this article
  1. Lizbeth Sayavedra
  2. Manuel Kleiner
  3. Ruby Ponnudurai
  4. Silke Wetzel
  5. Eric Pelletier
  6. Valerie Barbe
  7. Nori Satoh
  8. Eiichi Shoguchi
  9. Dennis Fink
  10. Corinna Breusing
  11. Thorsten BH Reusch
  12. Philip Rosenstiel
  13. Markus B Schilhabel
  14. Dörte Becher
  15. Thomas Schweder
  16. Stephanie Markert
  17. Nicole Dubilier
  18. Jillian M Petersen
(2015)
Abundant toxin-related genes in the genomes of beneficial symbionts from deep-sea hydrothermal vent mussels
eLife 4:e07966.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966
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6 figures, 4 tables and 1 additional file

Figures

Figure 1
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Sampling sites.

Map showing the sampling sites of Bathymodiolus mussels at hydrothermal vents along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (red stars). B. sp. is found at Lilliput (BspSym), Bathymodiolus azoricus at Menez Gwen (BazSymA and BazSymB) and Lucky Strike. The details of the sampling sites are described in Supplementary file 1E. The map was produced with GeoMapApp 3.3.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.003
Figure 2 with 3 supplements
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Genes shared between the Bathymodiolus and vesicomyid SOX symbionts and free-living SUP05.

Protein-coding sequences from the Bathymodiolus sulfur-oxidizing (SOX) symbiont were compared to the clam symbiont genomes and to the SUP05 metagenome from Walsh et al. (2009) with BLAST score ratios (BSR). (A) Venn diagram of the shared and unique gene content in the clam symbionts, mussel symbionts, and SUP05 bacteria. Predicted protein sequences of each mussel symbiont were compared to a combined data set of the clam symbionts (Rma and Vok) and SUP05. Similarly, protein sequences of each clam symbiont were compared to a combined data set of mussel symbionts (BspSym, BazSymB, and BazSymA). Depending on the reference genome, the number of shared genes varies slightly and possibly reflects the presence of paralogous genes and redundant sequence information in these draft genomes. Abbreviations are explained in detail in Table 1. The BLAST score ratio (BSR) threshold was 0.4. (B) Venn diagram of mussel symbiont toxin-related genes (TRGs), calculated with a BSR threshold of 0.2.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.005
Figure 2—figure supplement 1
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Maximum likelihood 16S rRNA phylogeny of the close relatives of the Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts.

The tree was estimated from an alignment of 1653 nucleotide positions and was rooted with four sequences from Thiomicrospira species. The number of sequences per collapsed group is shown next to the gray blocks. Diagonal lines in the out-group branch indicate that the branch is not to scale. B. = Bathymodiolus; A. = Adipicola; I. = Idas.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.006
Figure 2—figure supplement 2
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Whole genome alignment.

Each colored block is a region of the genome that aligned to part of another genome because it is homologous and the genes are arranged in the same order. Lines crossing represent conflicting information when compared to other genomes. These are the sites where lack of synteny was observed. Red vertical lines represent contig boundaries. BspSym = SOX symbiont of Bathymodiolus sp., Vok = SOX symbiont Candidatus Vesicomyosocious okutanii, Rma = SOX symbiont of Calyptogena magnifica (Ca. Ruthia magnifica), SUP05 = free-living marine sulfur oxidizers.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.007
Figure 2—figure supplement 3
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Metabolic reconstruction of the Bathymodiolus symbiont.

Key metabolic pathways were inferred from genomic information using Pathway Tools (Caspi et al., 2014). Red stars indicate that the gene was not found in the B. sp. symbiont genome, and blue stars indicate that the gene was not found in BazSymB, but was found in BazSymA, both symbionts of B. azoricus. Red arrow indicates a missing enzyme that could be replaced with an alternative reaction. Green arrow indicates an inorganic pyrophosphate-dependent step in the modified version of the Calvin cycle. Nar = nitrate reductase; Nir = nitrite reductase; Nor = nitric oxide reductase; Hup = membrane-bound hydrogenase; SOX = sulfur oxidation; rDSR = reverse dissimilatory sulfite reductase; Sqr = sulfide-quinone reductase; Apr = adenylsulfate reductase; SAT = sulfate adenyltransferase; P = phosphate; BP = biphosphate; COX = cytochrome c oxidase; Gln = glutamine; Arg = arginine; Pro = proline; Met = methionine; Lys = lysine; Thr = threonine; Ile = isoleucine; PPi = inorganic pyrophosphate; PPase = soluble pyrophosphatase; SS = secretion system.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.008
Figure 3 with 1 supplement
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Phylogeny of YD repeat-containing proteins.

The tree is a consensus of bayesian and maximum likelihood analyses, result of an alignment of 536 amino acids. Black circles represent branches with posterior probability >0.8 and bootstrap value >80. White circles represent branches with either posterior probability >0.8 or bootstrap value >80. The number of sequences per collapsed group is shown next to the gray bloks. Purple: organism found in intestinal microflora or in close association with another organism; green: free-living; red: pathogen.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.009
Figure 3—figure supplement 1
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Consensus of bayesian and maximum likelihood phylogeny of YD proteins with identifiers.

Trees were estimated from an alignment of 536 amino acids. Circles represent branches with posterior probability higher than 0.8 and bootstrap values higher than 80/100. If both reconstruction methods are significant, the circle is black, otherwise it is white. Purple: found in intestinal microflora or in close association with other organisms; green: free-living; red: pathogen.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.010
Figure 4 with 2 supplements
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Protein similarity network of toxin-related proteins in the Bathymodiolus symbionts.

Each node corresponds to a protein sequence and the links between nodes represent BLAST hits. The length of the edges is inversely proportional to the sequence similarity. Protein clusters containing RTX or multifunctional autoprocessing RTX (MARTX) proteins are shown in the red panel on the left, and sequence clusters containing YD repeats are shown in the gray panel on the right. Arrowheads are proteins from B. azoricus symbionts, and triangles are proteins from B. sp. symbionts. The symbols are colored in green if they were identified in the Bathymodiolus symbionts as YD repeat-containing genes, red if they were identified as RTX genes, and purple for MARTX genes. Some protein sequences were similar to the TRGs but not annotated as such as these are partial genes that did not have any conserved domain. If the clusters contained mostly genes with a particular annotation, we named the clusters after these annotations, for example, cluster ‘TcB/TcC’ contained proteins annotated as TcB or TcC.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.011
Figure 4—figure supplement 1
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Network of toxin-related proteins in the Bathymodiolus symbionts with BLAST hits from Vibrio, Photorhabdus, Xenorhabdus, and Pseudomonas highlighted.

Each node corresponds to a protein sequence and the links between nodes represent BLAST hits. The length of the link is proportional to the sequence similarity. Protein clusters containing RTX or MARTX are shown in the red panel on the left. Sequence clusters containing YD repeats are shown in the gray panel on the right. Arrowheads are proteins from B. azoricus symbionts, and triangles are proteins from B. sp. symbionts. The symbols are colored in green if they could be identified in the Bathymodiolus symbionts as YD repeat-containing proteins, red if they could be identified as RTX proteins, and purple for MARTX. If the clusters contained mostly proteins with a particular annotation, we named the clusters after these annotations, for example, cluster ‘TcB/TcC’ contained proteins annotated as TcB or TcC.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.012
Figure 4—figure supplement 2
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Genomic architecture of MARTX regions.

The two MARTX regions in BspSym are shown. Operons identified by assembling transcriptome data are indicated in yellow boxes.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.013
Figure 5 with 3 supplements
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Distribution of the three major TRGs classes according to lifestyle.

Each dot represents one sequenced genome. The sum of TRGs is on the Y axis, and the total number of genes predicted in each genome is on the X axis. Free-living bacteria are shown in red, host-associated bacteria that live outside of host cells are in green, and host-associated bacteria that can live inside host cells are shown in blue. The positions of the Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts are indicated. A detailed overview of all organisms that had similar TRGs to the SOX symbiont with the number of TRGs is shown in Supplementary file 1B.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.014
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
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YD genes per genome, normalized to the total gene count.

Each dot is colored by the category to which they belong. Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts are highlighted.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.015
Figure 5—figure supplement 2
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MARTX genes per genome, normalized to the total gene count.

Each dot is colored by the category to which they belong. Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts are highlighted.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.016
Figure 5—figure supplement 3
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RTX genes per genome, normalized to the total gene count.

Each dot is colored by the category to which they belong. Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts are highlighted.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.017
Figure 6
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Single nucleotide polymorphisms per gene.

The number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) per gene was normalized according to the length minus regions of unknown sequence for genes containing N's. Genes smaller than 150 bp were not considered. The dotted line represents the median plus one standard deviation of the number of SNPs per gene per kb.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.020
Figure 6—source data 1

Variability in TRGs encoded by the Bathymodiolus SOX symbionts.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.021

Tables

Table 1

Overview of the genomes compared in this study: SOX symbiont of B. sp, two individual SOX symbionts of B. azoricus, SOX symbiont Candidatus Vesicomyosocious okutanii, SOX symbiont of Calyptogena magnifica (Candidatus Ruthia magnifica), and free-living SUP05

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.004
GenomeCollection siteContigsGC content (%)Length/Span (Mbp)†Number of CDSsHGTEstimated completeness‡Coverage§Separation method#References
B. sp symbiont (BspSym)Lilliput5238.231.8/2.3222533%95.39%22XFiltrationPetersen et al., 2011, this study
B. azoricus symbiont (BazSymB)Menez Gwen23938.201.5/1.7180230%90.60%8XGradient centrifugation/ binningThis study
B. azoricus symbiont (BazSymA)*Menez Gwen50637.581.85/1.85200835%97.70%59XBinningThis study
Ca. V. okutaniiSagami Bay131.591.0/1.098026%93.58%–Whole genome assemblyKuwahara et al., 2007
Ca. R. magnificaEast Pacific Rise, 9°N134.031.2/1.2121023%94.84%–Whole genome assemblyNewton et al., 2007
SUP05Saanich Inlet9739.291.4/2.5158630%85.76%–BinningWalsh et al., 2009

  1. SOX, sulfur-oxidizing.

  2. *

    SOX symbiont sequences recovered from metagenome of adductor muscle.

  3. HGT = Genes that potentially originated from horizontal gene transfer.

  4. †

    Length is the total length of sequence information on contigs without Ns, and span is the entire length of scaffold assembly including Ns.

  5. ‡

    The completeness of the genome was estimated with CheckM using a set of lineage-specific genes for proteobacteria (Parks et al., 2015).

  6. §

    Median coverage.

  7. #

    Separation method indicates the experimental separation of symbionts from host tissue and co-occurring symbionts (filtration or gradient centrifugation), or the in silico separation of genomic information from hosts and co-occurring bacteria (binning).

Table 2

p-values obtained with Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.018
B/NB df = 1P/NP df = 1Ext/Int/FL df = 2
YD0.0970.52170.010*
RTX0.7150.7930.308
MARTX0.7730.007*3.21e−06*

  1. The three main lifestyle categories were tested against each toxin-related class. Number of TRGs per genome was normalized to the total gene count.

  2. FL = free-living, Ext = extracellular host-associated, Int = intracellular host-associated, P = pathogen, NP = non-pathogen, B = found in biofilms, NB = not found in biofilms, df = degrees of freedom, TRG, toxin-related gene, MARTX, multifunctional autoprocessing RTX.

  3. *

    p-value was considered to be significant (p < 0.05).

Table 3

p-values obtained with Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test for enrichment of YD and MARTX genes similar to those from the SOX symbiont

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.019
FL/ExtFL/IntExt/Int
YD0.1290.0260.006*
MARTX2.125e−06*1.618e−06*0.751

  1. FL = free-living, Ext = extracellular host-associated, Int = intracellular host-associated, MARTX, multifunctional autoprocessing RTX, SOX, sulfur-oxidizing.

  2. *

    p-value was considered to be significant (p < 0.05).

Table 4

Toxin-related proteins found in the proteome of the SOX symbiont from B. azoricus

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.022
ProteomeIdentifierCategoryAnnotationMolecular weight (kDa)Max. number of unique peptides*
SMHost_EST_000107YDIPR006530|YD repeat4311
SMHost_EST_000115YDIPR006530|YD repeat4212
NHost_EST_000248YDIPR006530|YD repeat377
MHost_EST_002123YDIPR006530|YD repeat245
SM†Thio_BAZ_1943_contig360420_0RTX (activator)Hemolysin-activating lysine-acyltransferase (Hemolysin C)193
SMTox_BAZ_119_contig00027_0YDRHS repeat-associated core domain-containing protein20217
SMTox_BAZ_120_contig00027_1YDVirulence plasmid 28.1 kDa A protein6211
SMTox_BAZ_1734_contig02141_2RTX (transporter)Secretion protein HlyD family protein4310
SMTox_BAZ_2494_contig00030_0YDVirulence plasmid 28.1 kDa A protein18333
MTox_BAZ_3202_scaffold00038_7RTXHemolysins and related proteins containing CBS domains352
SMTox_BAZ_525_contig104979_0YDVirulence plasmid 28.1 kDa A protein522
S†ToxAzor_892893YDRhs1142
SMToxSMAR_1260BAT01109YD[weak similarity to] Toxin complex/plasmid virulence protein3218
NToxSMAR_2052BAT01788, Thio_BAZ_1733_contig02141_1 or Thio_BAZ_2580_scaffold00010_8RTX (transporter)Toxin secretion ATP-binding protein795
SToxSMAR893-894YDRhs family protein1031
SMToxAzor_890891YDRhs family protein676

  1. S = soluble proteome, M = membrane-enriched proteome, SM = found in both proteomes, SOX, sulfur-oxidizing.

  2. *

    The highest number of unique peptides detected in one sample.

  3. †

    Proteins that are potentially exported by the symbiont to the host gill tissue.

Additional files

Supplementary file 1

(A) Number of mobile elements in the genomes compared in this study. (B) Genomes with toxin-related genes (TRGs) similar to those of the sulfur-oxidizing (SOX) symbionts of Bathymodiolus. The number of genes per TRGs class is shown. (C) p-values obtained with one-way Permanova were corrected with Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. Number of TRGs per genome was normalized to the total gene count. (D) Transcriptome counts of three individuals from B. azoricus and three individuals from B. sp. were mapped to their respective reference genomes with Rockhopper. Expression values of TRGs were normalized to the expression of RubisCO. (E) Samples used in this study. (F) Primer sequences and annealing temperatures used to detect genome rearrangements. (G) Metagenomes and metatranscriptomes enriched in SUP05 from oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) or hydrothermal vents. (H) Amino acid sequences from the following genomes were used in the reference database for proteomic analysis (IncDB). The genomes belong to relatives of the SOX and methane-oxidizing (MOX) symbionts of B. azoricus, as well as the mussel host. (I) Details of expressed toxin-related proteins identified with proteomics. The values are given in % normalized spectral abundance factor (NSAF), which is a normalized spectral abundance factor that gives the relative abundance of a protein in a sample in %.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966.023

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  1. Lizbeth Sayavedra
  2. Manuel Kleiner
  3. Ruby Ponnudurai
  4. Silke Wetzel
  5. Eric Pelletier
  6. Valerie Barbe
  7. Nori Satoh
  8. Eiichi Shoguchi
  9. Dennis Fink
  10. Corinna Breusing
  11. Thorsten BH Reusch
  12. Philip Rosenstiel
  13. Markus B Schilhabel
  14. Dörte Becher
  15. Thomas Schweder
  16. Stephanie Markert
  17. Nicole Dubilier
  18. Jillian M Petersen
(2015)
Abundant toxin-related genes in the genomes of beneficial symbionts from deep-sea hydrothermal vent mussels
eLife 4:e07966.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07966