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Vibrio cholerae is a bacterium responsible for cholera, characterized by its virulence factors including cholera toxin (CT) and toxin-coregulated pili (TCP). It exists in two biotypes, El Tor and classical, with various subserotypes, and has a dual lifestyle in aquatic environments and the human intestine. The bacterium employs several survival strategies, including stress response activation and flagella expression for motility, to persist in both environments.

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1 (31)

Vibrio cholerae is a bacterium responsible for cholera, characterized by its virulence factors including cholera toxin (CT) and toxin-coregulated pili (TCP). It exists in two biotypes, El Tor and classical, with various subserotypes, and has a dual lifestyle in aquatic environments and the human intestine. The bacterium employs several survival strategies, including stress response activation and flagella expression for motility, to persist in both environments.

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Vibrio cholerae 317

Fig. 18.1 The lifecycle


of Vibrio cholerae in the
aquatic environment and
host intestine. Biofilm
formation is critical for
their persistence in both
the aquatic environment
and intestine. TCP
toxin-coregulated pili,
CT cholera toxin

traits. The two biotypes are further classified as occludens) which are required for phage coat
Inaba, Ogawa, and Hikojima subserotypes. The synthesis and morphogenesis.
El Tor biotype was originally isolated from an Other factors including outer membrane
outbreak in El Tor, Egypt, in 1905. porins, biotin and purine biosynthetic enzymes,
All cholera-causing strains carry virulence iron-regulated outer membrane proteins (IrgA),
genes for cholera toxin (CT) and toxin-­ and O antigen of LPS are also known virulence
coregulated pili (TCP). Virulence genes are factors. The non-O1/O139 also cause diarrhea
located in Vibrio pathogenicity islands (VPI-1 but generally milder than O1, and these serotypes
and VPI-2). The gene (ctxAB) encoding CT is are common in the USA. Vibrio cholerae has a
located in a lysogenic filamentous bacteriophage, single polar flagellum, which helps the bacterium
CTXΦ (Fig. 18.2), which also contains several to reach the intestinal mucosa and aids in
accessory virulence genes clustered in two ­colonization. It maintains two lifestyles: one in
regions, RS and core. The RS region constitutes the aquatic environment where it is free-living or
rstA, rstB, and rstR genes that are responsible for attached to zooplanktons and the other is inside
the site-specific integration, replication, and reg- the host gastrointestinal tract (Fig. 18.1). The
ulation of the phage into the chromosome. The common survival strategies for Vibrio either in
core region carries ctxAB which encodes CT and the aquatic environment or in human host include
genes for Psh, Cep (core-encoded pilin), Ace (1) the activation of stress response, (2) expres-
(accessory cholera enterotoxin), and Zot (zonula sion of flagella for motility and chemotaxis, (3)

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