microLifePub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqad024
Elizaveta Krol, Laura Werel, Lars Oliver Essen, Anke Becker
{"title":"Structural and functional diversity of bacterial cyclic nucleotide perception by CRP proteins.","authors":"Elizaveta Krol, Laura Werel, Lars Oliver Essen, Anke Becker","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqad024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/femsml/uqad024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cyclic AMP (cAMP) is a ubiquitous second messenger synthesized by most living organisms. In bacteria, it plays highly diverse roles in metabolism, host colonization, motility, and many other processes important for optimal fitness. The main route of cAMP perception is through transcription factors from the diverse and versatile CRP-FNR protein superfamily. Since the discovery of the very first CRP protein CAP in <i>Escherichia coli</i> more than four decades ago, its homologs have been characterized in both closely related and distant bacterial species. The cAMP-mediated gene activation for carbon catabolism by a CRP protein in the absence of glucose seems to be restricted to <i>E. coli</i> and its close relatives. In other phyla, the regulatory targets are more diverse. In addition to cAMP, cGMP has recently been identified as a ligand of certain CRP proteins. In a CRP dimer, each of the two cyclic nucleotide molecules makes contacts with both protein subunits and effectuates a conformational change that favors DNA binding. Here, we summarize the current knowledge on structural and physiological aspects of <i>E. coli</i> CAP compared with other cAMP- and cGMP-activated transcription factors, and point to emerging trends in metabolic regulation related to lysine modification and membrane association of CRP proteins.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"4 ","pages":"uqad024"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/db/d8/uqad024.PMC10187061.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9570011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-12-27eCollection Date: 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac027
Charlotte Michaux, Milan Gerovac, Elisabeth E Hansen, Lars Barquist, Jörg Vogel
{"title":"Grad-seq analysis of <i>Enterococcus faecalis</i> and <i>Enterococcus faecium</i> provides a global view of RNA and protein complexes in these two opportunistic pathogens.","authors":"Charlotte Michaux, Milan Gerovac, Elisabeth E Hansen, Lars Barquist, Jörg Vogel","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac027","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Enterococcus faecalis</i> and <i>Enterococcus faecium</i> are major nosocomial pathogens. Despite their relevance to public health and their role in the development of bacterial antibiotic resistance, relatively little is known about gene regulation in these species. RNA-protein complexes serve crucial functions in all cellular processes associated with gene expression, including post-transcriptional control mediated by small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs). Here, we present a new resource for the study of enterococcal RNA biology, employing the Grad-seq technique to comprehensively predict complexes formed by RNA and proteins in <i>E. faecalis</i> V583 and <i>E. faecium</i> AUS0004. Analysis of the generated global RNA and protein sedimentation profiles led to the identification of RNA-protein complexes and putative novel sRNAs. Validating our data sets, we observe well-established cellular RNA-protein complexes such as the 6S RNA-RNA polymerase complex, suggesting that 6S RNA-mediated global control of transcription is conserved in enterococci. Focusing on the largely uncharacterized RNA-binding protein KhpB, we use the RIP-seq technique to predict that KhpB interacts with sRNAs, tRNAs, and untranslated regions of mRNAs, and might be involved in the processing of specific tRNAs. Collectively, these datasets provide departure points for in-depth studies of the cellular interactome of enterococci that should facilitate functional discovery in these and related Gram-positive species. Our data are available to the community through a user-friendly Grad-seq browser that allows interactive searches of the sedimentation profiles (https://resources.helmholtz-hiri.de/gradseqef/).</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"4 ","pages":"uqac027"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117718/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9516279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-12-20eCollection Date: 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac025
Eduard Fadeev, Cécile Carpaneto Bastos, Jennifer H Hennenfeind, Steven J Biller, Daniel Sher, Matthias Wietz, Gerhard J Herndl
{"title":"Characterization of membrane vesicles in <i>Alteromonas macleodii</i> indicates potential roles in their copiotrophic lifestyle.","authors":"Eduard Fadeev, Cécile Carpaneto Bastos, Jennifer H Hennenfeind, Steven J Biller, Daniel Sher, Matthias Wietz, Gerhard J Herndl","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac025","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bacterial membrane vesicles (MVs) are abundant in the oceans, but their potential functional roles remain unclear. In this study we characterized MV production and protein content of six strains of <i>Alteromonas macleodii</i>, a cosmopolitan marine bacterium. <i>Alteromonas macleodii</i> strains varied in their MV production rates, with some releasing up to 30 MVs per cell per generation. Microscopy imaging revealed heterogenous MV morphologies, including some MVs aggregated within larger membrane structures. Proteomic characterization revealed that <i>A. macleodii</i> MVs are rich in membrane proteins related to iron and phosphate uptake, as well as proteins with potential functions in biofilm formation. Furthermore, MVs harbored ectoenzymes, such as aminopeptidases and alkaline phosphatases, which comprised up to 20% of the total extracellular enzymatic activity. Our results suggest that <i>A. macleodii</i> MVs may support its growth through generation of extracellular 'hotspots' that facilitate access to essential substrates. This study provides an important basis to decipher the ecological relevance of MVs in heterotrophic marine bacteria.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"4 ","pages":"uqac025"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/33/5a/uqac025.PMC10117737.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9516277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-11-02eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac022
Maxime Ardré, Guilhem Doulcier, Naama Brenner, Paul B Rainey
{"title":"A leader cell triggers end of lag phase in populations of <i>Pseudomonas fluorescens</i>.","authors":"Maxime Ardré, Guilhem Doulcier, Naama Brenner, Paul B Rainey","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac022","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The relationship between the number of cells colonizing a new environment and time for resumption of growth is a subject of long-standing interest. In microbiology this is known as the “inoculum effect.” Its mechanistic basis is unclear with possible explanations ranging from the independent actions of individual cells, to collective actions of populations of cells. Here, we use a millifluidic droplet device in which the growth dynamics of hundreds of populations founded by controlled numbers of Pseudomonas fluorescens cells, ranging from a single cell, to one thousand cells, were followed in real time. Our data show that lag phase decreases with inoculum size. The decrease of average lag time and its variance across droplets, as well as lag time distribution shapes, follow predictions of extreme value theory, where the inoculum lag time is determined by the minimum value sampled from the single-cell distribution. Our experimental results show that exit from lag phase depends on strong interactions among cells, consistent with a “leader cell” triggering end of lag phase for the entire population.","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac022"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117806/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9516244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-09-21eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac015
Eric H Jung, Yoon-Dong Park, Quigly Dragotakes, Lia S Ramirez, Daniel Q Smith, Flavia C G Reis, Amanda Dziedzic, Marcio L Rodrigues, Rosanna P Baker, Peter R Williamson, Anne Jedlicka, Arturo Casadevall, Carolina Coelho
{"title":"<i>Cryptococcus neoformans</i> releases proteins during intracellular residence that affect the outcome of the fungal-macrophage interaction.","authors":"Eric H Jung, Yoon-Dong Park, Quigly Dragotakes, Lia S Ramirez, Daniel Q Smith, Flavia C G Reis, Amanda Dziedzic, Marcio L Rodrigues, Rosanna P Baker, Peter R Williamson, Anne Jedlicka, Arturo Casadevall, Carolina Coelho","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac015","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac015","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Cryptococcus neoformans</i> is a facultative intracellular pathogen that can replicate and disseminate in mammalian macrophages. In this study, we analyzed fungal proteins identified in murine macrophage-like cells after infection with <i>C. neoformans</i>. To accomplish this, we developed a protocol to identify proteins released from cryptococcal cells inside macrophage-like cells; we identified 127 proteins of fungal origin in infected macrophage-like cells. Among the proteins identified was urease, a known virulence factor, and others such as transaldolase and phospholipase D, which have catalytic activities that could contribute to virulence. This method provides a straightforward methodology to study host-pathogen interactions. We chose to study further Yeast Oligomycin Resistance (Yor1), a relatively uncharacterized protein belonging to the large family of ATP binding cassette transporter (ABC transporters). These transporters belong to a large and ancient protein family found in all extant phyla. While ABC transporters have an enormous diversity of functions across varied species, in pathogenic fungi they are better studied as drug efflux pumps. Analysis of <i>C. neoformans yor1Δ</i> strains revealed defects in nonlytic exocytosis, capsule size, and dimensions of extracellular vesicles, when compared to wild-type strains. We detected no difference in growth rates and cell body size. Our results indicate that <i>C. neoformans</i> releases a large suite of proteins during macrophage infection, some of which can modulate fungal virulence and are likely to affect the fungal-macrophage interaction.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac015"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9552768/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9511704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-08-10eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac014
Monica Rolando, Cristina Di Silvestre, Laura Gomez-Valero, Carmen Buchrieser
{"title":"Bacterial methyltransferases: from targeting bacterial genomes to host epigenetics.","authors":"Monica Rolando, Cristina Di Silvestre, Laura Gomez-Valero, Carmen Buchrieser","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac014","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Methyltransferase (MTases) enzymes transfer methyl groups particularly on proteins and nucleotides, thereby participating in controlling the epigenetic information in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The concept of epigenetic regulation by DNA methylation has been extensively described for eukaryotes. However, recent studies have extended this concept to bacteria showing that DNA methylation can also exert epigenetic control on bacterial phenotypes. Indeed, the addition of epigenetic information to nucleotide sequences confers adaptive traits including virulence-related characteristics to bacterial cells. In eukaryotes, an additional layer of epigenetic regulation is obtained by post-translational modifications of histone proteins. Interestingly, in the last decades it was shown that bacterial MTases, besides playing an important role in epigenetic regulations at the microbe level by exerting an epigenetic control on their own gene expression, are also important players in host-microbe interactions. Indeed, secreted nucleomodulins, bacterial effectors that target the nucleus of infected cells, have been shown to directly modify the epigenetic landscape of the host. A subclass of nucleomodulins encodes MTase activities, targeting both host DNA and histone proteins, leading to important transcriptional changes in the host cell. In this review, we will focus on lysine and arginine MTases of bacteria and their hosts. The identification and characterization of these enzymes will help to fight bacterial pathogens as they may emerge as promising targets for the development of novel epigenetic inhibitors in both bacteria and the host cells they infect.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac014"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117894/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9888094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-05-18eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac006
Andrea Qvortrup Holst, Harshitha Jois, Martin Frederik Laursen, Morten O A Sommer, Tine Rask Licht, Martin Iain Bahl
{"title":"Human milk oligosaccharides induce acute yet reversible compositional changes in the gut microbiota of conventional mice linked to a reduction of butyrate levels.","authors":"Andrea Qvortrup Holst, Harshitha Jois, Martin Frederik Laursen, Morten O A Sommer, Tine Rask Licht, Martin Iain Bahl","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac006","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) are glycans with prebiotic properties known to drive microbial selection in the infant gut, which in turn influences immune development and future health. Bifidobacteria are specialized in HMO degradation and frequently dominate the gut microbiota of breastfed infants. However, some species of <i>Bacteroidaceae</i> also degrade HMOs, which may prompt selection also of these species in the gut microbiota. To investigate to what extent specific HMOs affect the abundance of naturally occurring <i>Bacteroidaceae</i> species in a complex mammalian gut environment, we conducted a study in 40 female NMRI mice administered three structurally different HMOs, namely 6'sialyllactose (6'SL, <i>n</i> = 8), 3-fucosyllactose (3FL, <i>n</i> = 16), and Lacto-N-Tetraose (LNT, <i>n</i> = 8), through drinking water (5%). Compared to a control group receiving unsupplemented drinking water (<i>n</i> = 8), supplementation with each of the HMOs significantly increased both the absolute and relative abundance of <i>Bacteroidaceae</i> species in faecal samples and affected the overall microbial composition analyzed by 16s rRNA amplicon sequencing. The compositional differences were mainly attributed to an increase in the relative abundance of the genus <i>Phocaeicola</i> (formerly <i>Bacteroides</i>) and a concomitant decrease of the genus <i>Lacrimispora</i> (formerly <i>Clostridium</i> XIVa cluster). During a 1-week washout period performed specifically for the 3FL group, this effect was reversed. Short-chain fatty acid analysis of faecal water revealed a decrease in acetate, butyrate and isobutyrate levels in animals supplemented with 3FL, which may reflect the observed decrease in the <i>Lacrimispora</i> genus. This study highlights HMO-driven <i>Bacteroidaceae</i> selection in the gut environment, which may cause a reduction of butyrate-producing clostridia.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac006"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117735/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9516240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-05-14eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac005
Igor Fijalkowski, Patrick Willems, Veronique Jonckheere, Laure Simoens, Petra Van Damme
{"title":"Hidden in plain sight: challenges in proteomics detection of small ORF-encoded polypeptides.","authors":"Igor Fijalkowski, Patrick Willems, Veronique Jonckheere, Laure Simoens, Petra Van Damme","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac005","DOIUrl":"10.1093/femsml/uqac005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Genomic studies of bacteria have long pointed toward widespread prevalence of small open reading frames (sORFs) encoding for short proteins, <100 amino acids in length. Despite the mounting genomic evidence of their robust expression, relatively little progress has been made in their mass spectrometry-based detection and various blanket statements have been used to explain this observed discrepancy. In this study, we provide a large-scale riboproteogenomics investigation of the challenging nature of proteomic detection of such small proteins as informed by conditional translation data. A panel of physiochemical properties alongside recently developed mass spectrometry detectability metrics was interrogated to provide a comprehensive evidence-based assessment of sORF-encoded polypeptide (SEP) detectability. Moreover, a large-scale proteomics and translatomics compendium of proteins produced by <i>Salmonella</i> Typhimurium (<i>S</i>. Typhimurium), a model human pathogen, across a panel of growth conditions is presented and used in support of our <i>in silico</i> SEP detectability analysis. This integrative approach is used to provide a data-driven census of small proteins expressed by <i>S</i>. Typhimurium across growth phases and infection-relevant conditions. Taken together, our study pinpoints current limitations in proteomics-based detection of novel small proteins currently missing from bacterial genome annotations.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac005"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117744/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9521981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac021
{"title":"It is a matter of whether we allow microbes to enter the food chain.","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/femsml/uqac021","url":null,"abstract":"When Martin Loessner decided as a little boy to become a scientist, he was already showing a lot of resistance. Even during Carnival—the so-called ‘Fifth Season’ in the western parts of Germany celebrated with street parades and costume balls—he gave his mum ‘a hard time finding costumes to dress him (me) up as a researcher or explorer’. Since then, Martin followed his curiosity and studied biology in Freiburg i. Br., Germany, and Michigan, USA, and eventually embarked on a PhD at the Bacteriological Institute at the Technical University in Munich, Germany. Here, he further stayed as a postdoctoral researcher, habilitated and became an Assistant Professor. During his early research years, he discovered his passion for bacteriophages and how they interact with their bacterial hosts. Especially, the function of the bacterial cell envelope in the uptake and release of bacteriophages fascinated him and he was at the forefront of research into endolysins (Loessner et al. 1995). These enzymes are encoded by the bacteriophage and activated at the end of the phage multiplication cycle. At that stage, new phage particles are assembled inside the bacterial cells and the bacteria start producing endolysins. With that, they decide their own fate: the endolysin recognizes the peptidoglycan of the bacterial envelope while its catalytic domain hydrolyses the cell wall from within. Together with a membrane pore-forming holin, endolysin activity destroys the host bacterium to release the newly produced phage particles (Loessner et al. 1997). Having found ‘a new agent that works as an antimicrobial, the next question you ask is: What about resistance?’. The answer to that question was unexpected. Since endolysins target highly conserved bonds within the cell wall (Korndörfer et al. 2006), bacteria are essentially unable to modify them, which prevents them from developing resistance. As any microbiologist can imagine, the discovery of a lack of resistance to an effective antibacterial agent can be mind-blowing. So, Martin had to withstand opposing opinions from many researchers and colleagues from the field. However, up to this day, it seems to be worth the effort; researchers have not been able to find any stable bacterial resistance mechanism to endolysins. Applying phages to improve lives","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac021"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/28/71/uqac021.PMC10117865.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9517169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
microLifePub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqac013
Subhash Dhital, Pankaj Deo, Manasa Bharathwaj, Kristy Horan, Joshua Nickson, Mohammad Azad, Isabella Stuart, Seong H Chow, Sachith D Gunasinghe, Rebecca Bamert, Jian Li, Trevor Lithgow, Benjamin P Howden, Thomas Naderer
{"title":"<i>Neisseria gonorrhoeae</i>-derived outer membrane vesicles package β-lactamases to promote antibiotic resistance.","authors":"Subhash Dhital, Pankaj Deo, Manasa Bharathwaj, Kristy Horan, Joshua Nickson, Mohammad Azad, Isabella Stuart, Seong H Chow, Sachith D Gunasinghe, Rebecca Bamert, Jian Li, Trevor Lithgow, Benjamin P Howden, Thomas Naderer","doi":"10.1093/femsml/uqac013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/femsml/uqac013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Neisseria gonorrhoeae</i> causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea. The treatment of gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly challenging, as <i>N. gonorrhoeae</i> has developed resistance to antimicrobial agents routinely used in the clinic. Resistance to penicillin is wide-spread partly due to the acquisition of β-lactamase genes. How <i>N. gonorrhoeae</i> survives an initial exposure to β-lactams before acquiring resistance genes remains to be understood. Here, using a panel of clinical isolates of <i>N. gonorrhoeae</i> we show that the β-lactamase enzyme is packaged into outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) by strains expressing <i>bla</i><sub>TEM-1B</sub> or <i>bla</i><sub>TEM-106</sub>, which protects otherwise susceptible clinical isolates from the β-lactam drug amoxycillin. We characterized the phenotypes of these clinical isolates of <i>N. gonorrhoeae</i> and the time courses over which the cross-protection of the strains is effective. Imaging and biochemical assays suggest that OMVs promote the transfer of proteins and lipids between bacteria. Thus, <i>N. gonorrhoeae</i> strains secret antibiotic degrading enzymes via OMVs enabling survival of otherwise susceptible bacteria.</p>","PeriodicalId":74189,"journal":{"name":"microLife","volume":"3 ","pages":"uqac013"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/a0/fb/uqac013.PMC10117772.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9517174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}