Transmission and hedge balance of virus-encoded cholera toxin genes in global habitats

Cholera is a highly contagious disease caused by Vibrio cholerae, which endangers human health, causes economic losses and overwhelms public health services. Although the impact of Vibrio cholerae on human health has been extensively studied, limited information is available about the acquisition and transmission of cholera toxin genes by V. cholerae across different environments. In this work, we investigated the transferring of cholera toxin genes between viruses and bacteria from different habitats by collecting viral and bacterial genomes containing the cholera toxin genes from IMG/VR, Refseq, and Enterobase databases.