{"doi":"10.1101/2025.01.19.633786","title":"The virulence regulator <i>bvgS</i> is required for nutrient-induced filamentation in <i>Bordetella avium</i>","abstract":"Bacteria can change morphology in response to stressors and changes in their environment, including infection of a host. We previously identified the bacterial species, Bordetella atropi , which uses nutrient-induced filamentation as a novel mechanism for cell-to-cell spreading in the intestinal epithelial cells of a nematode host. To further investigate the conservation of nutrient-induced filamentation in Bordetellae, we utilized the turkey-infecting species Bordetella avium which filaments in vitro when switched from a standard growth media to an enriched media. We conducted a selection-based filamentation screen with B. avium and isolated two independent non-filamentous mutants that failed to filament in highly enriched media. These mutants contained different alleles in bvgS , the sensor in the two-component master virulence regulator (BvgAS) conserved across the Bordetella genus. To investigate the role of bvgS in nutrient-induced filamentation, we conducted transcriptomics and found that bvgS mutation resulted in loss of responsiveness to highly-enriched media, especially in genes related to nutrient uptake and metabolism. The most dysregulated gene in the bvgS mutant encoded for succinyl-CoA:acetate CoA-transferase (SCACT) and we were able to regulate filamentation with exogenous metabolites up and downstream of this enzyme. These data suggest that bvgS regulates nutrient-induced filamentation by controlling metabolic capacity. Overall, we found that the virulence regulator bvgS is required for nutrient-induced filamentation in B. avium , suggesting there may be conservation in Bordetellae for utilizing this morphological change as a virulence phenotype.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":560607,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9587,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":905884,"name":"Robert J. Luallen","orcid":"0000-0001-7657-2791","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1462457,"name":"Niklas G. Perslow","orcid":"0000-0002-7337-6872","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":41,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:55:42.883572Z","pmid":"39868252","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}