Bacteria thrive in a wide range of environments, from soil and water to colonization of host organisms, and they must rapidly adapt to fluctuating conditions to survive and propagate. One of the key m...

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Vibrio cholerae colonizes estuarine environments and human hosts, where it transitions between motile and sessile states using the second messenger cyclic di-GMP (cdG). cdG levels change in response to a variety of signals and are controlled by the activity of diguanylate cyclases and phosphodiesterase (PDEs), enzymes that make and degrade cdG. In this work, we show that Zn2+ and the cell density regulator HapR repress ZpdA, the PDE present in the Vibrio seventh pandemic 2 island, at the level of transcription, and that Zn2+ unexpectedly alters the PDE activity of ZpdA protein itself. Our study highlights the role of metal availability as an important signaling cue that controls V. cholerae biology.

The second messenger cyclic di-GMP (cdG) in V. cholerae is indispensable for the regulation of biofilm formation, motility, and a variety of other important bacterial behaviors in the majority of bact...