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Science 16 December 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5755, pp. 1824 - 1827
DOI: 10.1126/science.1120096
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Reports

Chitin Induces Natural Competence in Vibrio cholerae

Karin L. Meibom,*{dagger} Melanie Blokesch,* Nadia A. Dolganov, Cheng-Yen Wu, Gary K. Schoolnik{dagger}

The mosaic-structured Vibrio cholerae genome points to the importance of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in the evolution of this human pathogen. We showed that V. cholerae can acquire new genetic material by natural transformation during growth on chitin, a biopolymer that is abundant in aquatic habitats (e.g., from crustacean exoskeletons), where it lives as an autochthonous microbe. Transformation competence was found to require a type IV pilus assembly complex, a putative DNA binding protein, and three convergent regulatory cascades, which are activated by chitin, increasing cell density, and nutrient limitation, a decline in growth rate, or stress.

Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Stanford Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to the work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kmeibom{at}necker.fr (K.L.M.); schoolni{at}cmgm.stanford.edu (G.K.S.)

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