ArticleCell host & microbe2025
A thiouracil desulfurase protects Clostridioides difficile RNA from 4-thiouracil incorporation, providing a competitive advantage in the gut.
Article in Cell host & microbe, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- The exploitation of nutrient metals by bacteria for survival and infection in the gut.PLoS pathogens · 2025Review
- DNA-utilization loci enable exogenous DNA metabolism in gut Bacteroidales.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- RNA modification is the mark and strategy for host-microbe interactions.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Review
- The nucleobase analog 4-thiouracil hijacks the pyrimidine salvage pathway to inhibitMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Metabolic ecology of microbiomes: Nutrient competition, host benefits, and community engineering.Cell host & microbe · 2025Review
- Scavenging a pyrimidine to thrive.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Nucleotides are essential building blocks for major cellular macromolecules and are critical for life. Consequently, bacterial pathogens must acquire or synthesize nucleotides during infection. Clostridioides difficile is the most common hospital-acquired gastrointestinal infection, and nutrient acquisition is critical for pathogenesis. However, the impact of nucleotide metabolism on C. difficile infection remains unclear. Here, we discover that 4-thiouracil (4-TU), a pyrimidine analog present in the human gut, is toxic to commensal bacteria. 4-TU hijacks the uracil salvage pathway for incorporation into RNA through the uracil phosphoribosyltransferase activity encoded by PyrR and Upp. C. difficile can salvage 4-TU as a pyrimidine source through the enzymatic action of a thiouracil desulfurase (TudS), thereby contributing to C. difficile fitness in mice fed 4-TU or MiniBioreactor models of infection containing exogenous 4-TU. Collectively, these results reveal a molecular mechanism for C. difficile to utilize a poisonous pyrimidine analog in the vertebrate gut to outcompete commensal microbes.
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Registered trials
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