Identification of Three Type II Toxin-Antitoxin Systems in Streptococcus suis Serotype 2

Abstract

Type II toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are highly prevalent in bacterial genomes and have been extensively studied. These modules involve in the formation of persistence cells, the biofilm formation, and stress resistance, which might play key roles in pathogen virulence. SezAT and yefM-yoeB TA modules in Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (S. suis 2) have been studied, although the other TA systems have not been identified. In this study, we investigated nine putative type II TA systems in the genome of S. suis 2 strain SC84 by bioinformatics analysis and identified three of them (two relBE loci and one parDE locus) that function as typical type II TA systems. Interestingly, we found that the introduction of the two RelBE TA systems into Escherichia coli or the induction of the ParE toxin led to cell filamentation. Promoter activity assays indicated that RelB1, RelB2, ParD, and ParDE negatively autoregulated the transcriptions of their respective TA operons, while RelBE2 positively autoregulated its TA operon transcription. Collectively, we identified three TA systems in S. suis 2, and our findings have laid an important foundation for further functional studies on these TA systems.