Role of Alkaline Serine Protease, Asp, in Vibrio alginolyticus Virulence and Regulation of Its Expression by LuxO-LuxR Regulatory System

The alkaline serine protease asp, which was shown to be a virulence factor of Vibrio alginolyticus as a purified protein, was cloned from V. alginolyticus EPGS, a strain recently isolated from moribund Epinephelus coioides in an outbreak of vibriosis in a mariculture farm of Shenzhen. The asp null mutant was constructed by homologous recombination with suicide plasmid pNQ705-1. Compared with the wild-type strain, the asp null mutant exhibited a significant decrease of total extracellular protease activity, and caused a IS-fold decrease in virulence of V. alginolyticus. In our previous study, the luxO and $luxR_{val}$ genes from V. alginolyticus MVP01 were cloned and identified, and the luxO-$luxR_{val}$ regulatory couple was shown to regulate various genes expression, suggesting that it played a central role in the quorum sensing system of V. alginolyticus. In this study, the regulation of the asp gene was analyzed by using RT-PCR and quantitative real-time PCR methods; we proved that its transcription was greatly induced at the late stage of growth and was regulated by a luxO-$luxR_{val}$ regulatory system.