Strength of Cu-efflux response in Escherichia coli coordinates metal resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans and contributes to the severity of environmental toxicity

Without effective homeostatic systems in place, excess copper (Cu) is universally toxic to organisms. While increased utilization of anthropogenic Cu in the environment has driven the diversification of Cu-resistance systems within enterobacteria, little research has focused on how this change in bacterial architecture impacts host organisms that need to maintain their own Cu homeostasis. Therefore, we utilized a simplified host–microbe system to determine whether the efficiency of one bacterial Cu-resistance system, increasing Cu-efflux capacity via the ubiquitous CusRS two-component system, contributes to the availability and subsequent toxicity of Cu in host Caenorhabditis elegans nematode. We found that a fully functional Cu-efflux system in bacteria increased the severity of Cu toxicity in host nematodes without increasing the C. elegans Cu-body burden. Instead, increased Cu toxicity in the host was associated with reduced expression of a protective metal stress-response gene, numr-1, in the posterior pharynx of nematodes where pharyngeal grinding breaks apart ingested bacteria before passing into the digestive tract. The spatial localization of numr-1 transgene activation and loss of bacterially dependent Cu-resistance in nematodes without an effective numr-1 response support the hypothesis that numr-1 is responsive to the bacterial Cu-efflux capacity. We propose that the bacterial Cu-efflux capacity acts as a robust spatial determinant for a host’s response to chronic Cu stress.