title: From cholera to corals: Viruses as drivers of virulence in a major coral bacterial pathogen.
abstract: Disease is an increasing threat to reef-building corals. One of the few identified pathogens of coral disease is the bacterium Vibrio coralliilyticus. In Vibrio cholerae, infection by a bacterial virus (bacteriophage) results in the conversion of non-pathogenic strains to pathogenic strains and this can lead to cholera pandemics. Pathogenicity islands encoded in the V. cholerae genome play an important role in pathogenesis. Here we analyse five whole genome sequences of V. coralliilyticus to examine whether virulence is similarly driven by horizontally acquired elements. We demonstrate that bacteriophage genomes encoding toxin genes with homology to those found in pathogenic V. cholerae are integrated in V. coralliilyticus genomes. Virulence factors located on chromosomal pathogenicity islands also exist in some strains of V. coralliilyticus. The presence of these genetic signatures indicates virulence in V. coralliilyticus is driven by prophages and other horizontally acquired elements. Screening for pathogens of coral disease should target conserved regions in these elements.
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB #3, Townsville 4810, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: Karen D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Weynberg
authors.affiliation: Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Christian R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Voolstra
authors.affiliation: Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Neave
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB #3, Townsville 4810, Queensland, Australia.|School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Queensland, Australia.|AIMS@JCU, Townsville, Queensland 4814, Australia.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Buerger
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB #3, Townsville 4810, Queensland, Australia.|School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, 3010, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Madeleine J H
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van Oppen
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000821:virology; D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002771:Cholera / Q000382:microbiology*; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D016679:Genome, Viral; D023281:Genomics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014733:Vibrio / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000821:virology*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D037521:Virulence Factors
chemical_list: D014764:Viral Proteins; D037521:Virulence Factors