title: A New N-Acyl Homoserine Lactone Synthase in an Uncultured Symbiont of the Red Sea Sponge Theonella swinhoei.
abstract: Sponges harbor a remarkable diversity of microbial symbionts in which signal molecules can accumulate and enable cell-cell communication, such as quorum sensing (QS). Bacteria capable of QS were isolated from marine sponges; however, an extremely small fraction of the sponge microbiome is amenable to cultivation. We took advantage of community genome assembly and binning to investigate the uncultured majority of sponge symbionts. We identified a complete N-acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL)-QS system (designated TswIR) and seven partial luxI homologues in the microbiome of Theonella swinhoei. The TswIR system was novel and shown to be associated with an alphaproteobacterium of the order Rhodobacterales, here termed Rhodobacterales bacterium TS309. The tswI gene, when expressed in Escherichia coli, produced three AHLs, two of which were also identified in a T. swinhoei sponge extract. The taxonomic affiliation of the 16S rRNA of Rhodobacterales bacterium TS309 to a sponge-coral specific clade, its enrichment in sponge versus seawater and marine sediment samples, and the presence of sponge-specific features, such as ankyrin-like domains and tetratricopeptide repeats, indicate a likely symbiotic nature of this bacterium.
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Britstein
authors.affiliation: Bacteriology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology, Padriciano, Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Giulia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Devescovi
authors.affiliation: Argonne National Laboratory, Institute for Genomic and Systems Biology, Argonne, Illinois, USA.|Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
authors.forename: Kim M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Handley
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Service Unit, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Assaf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haber
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Kumar
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saurav
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Farmacia, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Teta
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Farmacia, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Costantino
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Ilia
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Burgsdorf
authors.affiliation: Argonne National Laboratory, Institute for Genomic and Systems Biology, Argonne, Illinois, USA.|Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.|Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA.|Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.|College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jack A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Service Unit, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Noa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sher
authors.affiliation: Bacteriology Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology, Padriciano, Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Venturi
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel lsteindler@univ.haifa.ac.il.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Steindler
mesh_terms: D054742:Acyl-Butyrolactones / Q000378:metabolism; D020561:Alphaproteobacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015870:Gene Expression; D019156:Indian Ocean; D008025:Ligases / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D064307:Microbiota; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013559:Symbiosis; D047232:Theonella / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D054742:Acyl-Butyrolactones; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D008025:Ligases; C449816:N-acylhomoserine lactone synthase