Mating in the Closest Living Relatives of Animals Is Induced by a Bacterial Chondroitinase.
We serendipitously discovered that the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri induces sexual reproduction in one of the closest living relatives of animals, the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta. Although bacteria influence everything from nutrition and metabolism to cell biology and development in eukaryotes, bacterial regulation of eukaryotic mating was unexpected. Here, we show that a single V. fischeri protein, the previously uncharacterized EroS, fully recapitulates the aphrodisiac-like activity of live V. fischeri. EroS is a chondroitin lyase; although its substrate, chondroitin sulfate, was previously thought to be an animal synapomorphy, we demonstrate that S. rosetta produces chondroitin sulfate and thus extend the ancestry of this important glycosaminoglycan to the premetazoan era. Finally, we show that V. fischeri, purified EroS, and other bacterial chondroitin lyases induce S. rosetta mating at environmentally relevant concentrations, suggesting that bacteria likely regulate choanoflagellate mating in nature.
['Woznica|Arielle|A|', 'Gerdt|Joseph P|JP|', 'Hulett|Ryan E|RE|', 'Clardy|Jon|J|', 'King|Nicole|N|']
D048908:Aliivibrio fischeri D000595:Amino Acid Sequence D001426:Bacterial Proteins D056897:Choanoflagellata D002809:Chondroitin Sulfates D002810:Chondroitinases and Chondroitin Lyases D008540:Meiosis D012098:Reproduction D016415:Sequence Alignment
mating chondroitinase Vibrio choanoflagellate chondroitin lyase chondroitin sulfate host-microbe swarming symbiosis