Beyond homeostasis: potassium and pathogenesis during bacterial infections
Potassium is an essential mineral nutrient required by all living cells for normal physiological function. Maintaining intracellular potassium homeostasis during bacterial infection is therefore a requirement for the survival of both host and pathogen. However, pathogenic bacteria require potassium transport not only to fulfill nutritional and chemiosmotic requirements, but potassium has been shown to directly modulate virulence gene expression, antimicrobial resistance, and biofilm formation. Host cells also require potassium to maintain fundamental biological processes as such as renal function, muscle contraction, and neuronal transmission, however, potassium flux also contributes to critical immunological and antimicrobial processes such as cytokine production and inflammasome activation. Here we review the role and regulation of potassium transport and signaling during infection in both mammalian and bacterial cells and highlight the importance of potassium to the success and survival of each organism.