Poster Presentation Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Scientific Meeting 2024

Chemotaxis system in Campylobacter concisus: a bioinformatics glance (#97)

Pradip Sedhai 1 , Thi Thu Hao Van 1 , Taghrid Istivan 1
  1. School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne , VIC, Australia

Campylobacter concisus is a human oral commensal which is emerging as an opportunistic pathogen. This hydrogen-requiring, Gram-negative, fastidious bacterium has been linked with periodontitis and gingivitis in humans since its first identification in the 1980s. Yet more recently, it has been linked with both acute and chronic gastroenteritis and to inflammatory bowel diseases in children and adults. Virulence-related factors such as toxin production, secreted and cell-bound hemolysins, and biofilm formation have been characterised in oral and intestinal C. concisus strains, however, chemotaxis-mediated motility has not been thoroughly investigated or linked to the survival, and colonisation of this bacterium. This research aims to identify the chemotaxis system in C. concisus and other H2-requiring Campylobacter spp.: C. curvus, C. gracilis, C. rectus, C. mucosalis and C. showae by deploying bioinformatics tools to perform a genomic comparison with the thoroughly characterised chemotaxis system of C. jejuni as a model. The whole genome sequence annotation and multiple sequence alignment of chemotaxis genes showed similarity between H2-requiring Campylobacter spp. to C. jejuni. The chemotaxis-related genes in H2-requiring Campylobacter spp. include those encoding signal recognition, transduction, and adaptation proteins, which are also identified in other motile bacteria. The chemotaxis system in C. concisus and other H2-requiring Campylobacter spp. may contain multiple chemosensors for ligand sensing and binding, signal receptor-CheA/W/V-CheY-flagella cascade for signal recognition and transduction, in addition to CheB and CheR for signal adaptation. Phylogenetic analysis of CheA and CheY genes shows a close relationship of C. concisus to C. mucosalis and C. rectus respectively. This analysis shows that the components such as the single-domain CheY, CheW, CheB and multi-domain CheA and CheV proteins of the signal transduction and adaptation pathways in C. concisus mostly resemble C. jejuni. The chemotaxis pathway in C. jejuni has been reported to play an essential role in pathogen colonisation and manifestation of disease in avian and mammalian hosts. Therefore, understanding the chemotaxis system in C. concisus is equally important. Additionally, the chemotaxis behaviour of oral and intestinal C. concisus isolates is currently being evaluated against mucin and other luminal environmental factors.