scholarly journals Functional Characterization and Mutagenesis of the Proposed Behavioral Sensor TlpD of Helicobacter pylori

2008 ◽  
Vol 190 (9) ◽  
pp. 3244-3255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Schweinitzer ◽  
Tomoko Mizote ◽  
Naohiro Ishikawa ◽  
Alexey Dudnik ◽  
Sakiko Inatsu ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori requires flagellar motility and chemotaxis to establish and maintain chronic infection of the human stomach. The pH gradient in the stomach mucus is essential for bacterial orientation and guides the bacterium toward a narrow layer of the mucus, suggesting that H. pylori is capable of energy sensing or taxis. In the present study, H. pylori wild-type behavior in a temporal swimming assay could be altered by electron transport inhibitors, indicating that a connection between metabolism and behavior exists. In order to elucidate mechanisms of behavioral responses of H. pylori related to energy sensing, we investigated the phenotypes of single and multiple mutants of the four proposed chemotaxis sensor proteins. All sensor mutants were motile, but they diverged in their behavior in media supporting different energy yields. One proposed intracellular sensor, TlpD, was crucial for behavioral responses of H. pylori in defined media which did not permit growth and led to reduced bacterial energy levels. Suboptimal energetic conditions and inhibition of electron transport induced an increased frequency of stops and direction changes in the wild type but not in tlpD mutants. Loss of metabolism-dependent behavior in tlpD mutants could be reversed by complementation but not by electron donors bypassing the activity of the electron transport chain, in contrast to the case for the wild type. TlpD, which apparently lacks transmembrane domains, was detected both in the bacterial cytoplasm and at the bacterial periphery. The proposed energy sensor TlpD was found to mediate a repellent tactic response away from conditions of reduced electron transport.

2005 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 1820-1827 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. McGee ◽  
Melanie L. Langford ◽  
Emily L. Watson ◽  
J. Elliot Carter ◽  
Yu-Ting Chen ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori causes disease in the human stomach and in mouse and gerbil stomach models. Previous results have shown that motility is critical for H. pylori to colonize mice, gerbils, and other animal models. The role of chemotaxis, however, in colonization and disease is less well understood. Two genes in the H. pylori chemotaxis pathway, cheY and tlpB, which encode the chemotaxis response regulator and a methyl-accepting chemoreceptor, respectively, were disrupted. The cheY mutation was complemented with a wild-type copy of cheY inserted into the chromosomal rdxA gene. The cheY mutant lost chemotaxis but retained motility, while all other strains were motile and chemotactic in vitro. These strains were inoculated into gerbils either alone or in combination with the wild-type strain, and colonization and inflammation were assessed. While the cheY mutant completely failed to colonize gerbil stomachs, the tlpB mutant colonized at levels similar to those of the wild type. With the tlpB mutant, there was a substantial decrease in inflammation in the gerbil stomach compared to that with the wild type. Furthermore, there were differences in the numbers of each immune cell in the tlpB-mutant-infected stomach: the ratio of lymphocytes to neutrophils was about 8 to 1 in the wild type but only about 1 to 1 in the mutant. These results suggest that the TlpB chemoreceptor plays an important role in the inflammatory response while the CheY chemotaxis regulator plays a critical role in initial colonization. Chemotaxis mutants may provide new insights into the steps involved in H. pylori pathogenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 045-053
Author(s):  
Masaaki Minami ◽  
Shin-nosuke Hashikawa ◽  
Takafumi Ando ◽  
Hiroshi Kobayashi ◽  
Hidemi Goto ◽  
...  

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) urease generates both ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from urea. NH3 helps H. pylori to survive in the stomach in part by neutralizing gastric acid. However, the relationship between CO2 and H. pylori is not completed cleared. We examined the effect of CO2 generated by urease on multiplication of H. pylori by using isogenic ureB mutant and ureB complemented strain from H. pylori strain JP26. Wild-type strain survived in the medium supplement with 1mM urea in room air, however, the urease negative strain did not. To discern whether CO2 was incorporated into H. pylori, 14C in bacillus was counted after 6 hours incubation with 14C urea in both acidic and neutral medium. Significant more 14C uptake was detected in wild-type strain compared to ureB mutant strain and this uptake in the wild-type strain was more under acidic condition compared to under neutral condition, but no difference was identified in the mutant strain. These results suggest that CO2 generated by urease plays a role in multiplication of H. pylori.


2005 ◽  
Vol 187 (13) ◽  
pp. 4463-4469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Pereira ◽  
Timothy R. Hoover

ABSTRACT Several flagellar genes in Helicobacter pylori are dependent on σ54 (RpoN) for their expression. These genes encode components of the basal body, the hook protein, and a minor flagellin, FlaB. A protein-protein interaction map for H. pylori constructed from a high-throughput screen of a yeast two-hybrid assay (http://pim.hybrigenics.com/pimrider ext/common/) revealed interactions between σ54 and the conserved hypothetical protein HP0958. To see if HP0958 influences σ54 function, the corresponding gene was disrupted with a kanamycin resistance gene (aphA3) in H. pylori ATCC 43504 and the resulting mutant was analyzed. The hp0958:aphA3 mutant was nonmotile and failed to produce flagella. Introduction of a functional copy of hp0958 into the genome of the hp0958:aphA3 mutant restored flagellar biogenesis and motility. The hp0958:aphA3 mutant was deficient in expressing two σ54-dependent reporter genes, flaB′-′xylE and hp1120′-′xylE. Levels of σ54 in the hp0958 mutant were substantially lower than those in the parental strain, suggesting that the failure of the mutant to express the genes in the RpoN regulon and produce flagella was due to reduced σ54 levels. Expressing σ54 at high levels by putting rpoN under the control of the ureA promoter restored flagellar biogenesis and motility in the hp0958:aphA3 mutant. Turnover of σ54 was more rapid in the hp0958:aphA3 mutant than it was in the wild-type strain, suggesting that HP0958 supports wild-type σ54 levels in H. pylori by protecting it from proteolysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 027-035
Author(s):  
Masaaki Minami ◽  
Shin-nosuke Hashikawa ◽  
Takafumi Ando ◽  
Hiroshi Kobayashi ◽  
Hidemi Goto ◽  
...  

Na+/H+ antiporter plays an important role in maintaining cellular homeostasis by regulating osmotic pressure and intracellular pH. It plays an important role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. In Helicobacter pylori, whole genome sequencing has revealed the presence of two types of Na+/H+ antiporter. A gene (nhaA) homologous to the Na+/H+ antiporter of Escherichia coli has been investigated and its function has been analyzed. However, another gene homologous to the Na+/H+ antiporter of Enterococcus hirae (napA) is not yet known in detail. In this study, we investigated the function of this gene (napA in H. pylori). First, to confirm the genetic presence of napA in 20 H. pylori clinical isolates, PCR analysis was performed, and the napA gene was confirmed in all strains. The amount of Na+ extrusion was measured by atomic absorption spectroscopy. The results showed that the Na+ concentration was decreased in the wild-type strain compared to the napA mutant strain. In addition, there was a significant dose-dependent difference in CFU of Na+ concentration in the napA mutant strain compared to the wild-type strain. We examined whether the napA gene is related to motility using both wild-type and napA mutant strains. As a result, in the motility agar test, the bacterial motility observed in the wild-type strain was not observed in the napA mutant strain. However, no difference in flagellar proteins was observed by SDS-PAGE analysis. These results suggest that the napA gene of H. pylori may regulate homeostasis by extruding Na+ and may also regulate motility.


2012 ◽  
Vol 80 (7) ◽  
pp. 2286-2296 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Sause ◽  
Andrea R. Castillo ◽  
Karen M. Ottemann

ABSTRACTThe human pathogenHelicobacter pyloriemploys a diverse collection of outer membrane proteins to colonize, persist, and drive disease within the acidic gastric environment. In this study, we sought to elucidate the function of the host-induced geneHP0289, which encodes an uncharacterized outer membrane protein. We first generated an isogenicH. pylorimutant that lacksHP0289and found that the mutant has a colonization defect in single-strain infections and is greatly outcompeted in mouse coinfection experiments with wild-typeH. pylori. Furthermore, we used protease assays and biochemical fractionation coupled with an HP0289-targeted peptide antibody to verify that the HP0289 protein resides in the outer membrane. Our previous findings showed that theHP0289promoter is upregulated in the mouse stomach, and here we demonstrate thatHP0289expression is induced under acidic conditions in an ArsRS-dependent manner. Finally, we have shown that theHP0289mutant induces greater expression of the chemokine interleukin-8 (IL-8) and the cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in gastric carcinoma cells (AGS). Similarly, transcription of the IL-8 homolog keratinocyte-derived chemokine (KC) is elevated in murine infections with the HP0289 mutant than in murine infections with wild-typeH. pylori. On the basis of this phenotype, we renamed HP0289 ImaA forimmunomodulatoryautotransporter protein. Our work has revealed that genes inducedin vivoplay an important role inH. pyloripathogenesis. Specifically, the outer membrane protein ImaA modulates a component of the host inflammatory response, and thus may allowH. pylorito fine tune the host immune response based on ImaA expression.


mBio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adria Carbo ◽  
Danyvid Olivares-Villagómez ◽  
Raquel Hontecillas ◽  
Josep Bassaganya-Riera ◽  
Rupesh Chaturvedi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe development of gastritis duringHelicobacter pyloriinfection is dependent on an activated adaptive immune response orchestrated by T helper (Th) cells. However, the relative contributions of the Th1 and Th17 subsets to gastritis and control of infection are still under investigation. To investigate the role of interleukin-21 (IL-21) in the gastric mucosa duringH. pyloriinfection, we combined mathematical modeling of CD4+T cell differentiation within vivomechanistic studies. We infected IL-21-deficient and wild-type mice withH. pyloristrain SS1 and assessed colonization, gastric inflammation, cellular infiltration, and cytokine profiles. ChronicallyH. pylori-infected IL-21-deficient mice had higherH. pyloricolonization, significantly less gastritis, and reduced expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines compared to these parameters in infected wild-type littermates. Thesein vivodata were used to calibrate anH. pyloriinfection-dependent, CD4+T cell-specific computational model, which then described the mechanism by which IL-21 activates the production of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) and IL-17 during chronicH. pyloriinfection. The model predicted activated expression of T-bet and RORγt and the phosphorylation of STAT3 and STAT1 and suggested a potential role of IL-21 in the modulation of IL-10. Driven by our modeling-derived predictions, we found reduced levels of CD4+splenocyte-specifictbx21androrcexpression, reduced phosphorylation of STAT1 and STAT3, and an increase in CD4+T cell-specific IL-10 expression inH. pylori-infected IL-21-deficient mice. Our results indicate that IL-21 regulates Th1 and Th17 effector responses during chronicH. pyloriinfection in a STAT1- and STAT3-dependent manner, therefore playing a major role controllingH. pyloriinfection and gastritis.IMPORTANCEHelicobacter pyloriis the dominant member of the gastric microbiota in more than 50% of the world’s population.H. pyloricolonization has been implicated in gastritis and gastric cancer, as infection withH. pyloriis the single most common risk factor for gastric cancer. Current data suggest that, in addition to bacterial virulence factors, the magnitude and types of immune responses influence the outcome of colonization and chronic infection. This study uses a combined computational and experimental approach to investigate how IL-21, a proinflammatory T cell-derived cytokine, maintains the chronic proinflammatory T cell immune response driving chronic gastritis duringH. pyloriinfection. This research will also provide insight into a myriad of other infectious and immune disorders in which IL-21 is increasingly recognized to play a central role. The use of IL-21-related therapies may provide treatment options for individuals chronically colonized withH. pylorias an alternative to aggressive antibiotics.


2002 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Josenhans ◽  
Eike Niehus ◽  
Stefanie Amersbach ◽  
Andrea Hörster ◽  
Christian Betz ◽  
...  

2004 ◽  
Vol 72 (9) ◽  
pp. 5506-5510 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Loh ◽  
Mark H. Forsyth ◽  
Timothy L. Cover

ABSTRACT LuxS plays a role in the synthesis of an extracellular signaling molecule, autoinducer 2 (AI-2). To analyze a possible role of AI-2 in regulating Helicobacter pylori gene expression, we constructed a panel of transcriptional reporter strains. We show that the expression of H. pylori flaA is growth phase dependent and that flaA transcription increases in association with increased culture density. Mutating the luxS gene eliminates growth-phase-dependent control of flaA, and this growth phase dependence is restored when the luxS mutant strain is complemented with the wild-type luxS gene.


2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Sause ◽  
Daniela Keilberg ◽  
Soufiane Aboulhouda ◽  
Karen M. Ottemann

ABSTRACT The human pathogen Helicobacter pylori uses the host receptor α5β1 integrin to trigger inflammation in host cells via its cag pathogenicity island (cag PAI) type IV secretion system (T4SS). Here, we report that the H. pylori ImaA protein (HP0289) decreases the action of the cag PAI T4SS via tempering the bacterium's interaction with α5β1 integrin. Previously, imaA-null mutants were found to induce an elevated inflammatory response that was dependent on the cag PAI T4SS; here we extend those findings to show that the elevated response is independent of the CagA effector protein. To understand how ImaA could be affecting cag PAI T4SS activity at the host cell interface, we utilized the Phyre structural threading program and found that ImaA has a region with remote homology to bacterial integrin-binding proteins. This region was required for ImaA function. Unexpectedly, we observed that imaA mutants bound higher levels of α5β1 integrin than wild-type H. pylori, an outcome that required the predicted integrin-binding homology region of ImaA. Lastly, we report that ImaA directly affected the amount of host cell β1 integrin but not other cellular integrins. Our results thus suggest a model in which H. pylori employs ImaA to regulate interactions between integrin and the T4SS and thus alter the host inflammatory strength.


2003 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 2920-2923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy E. Wanken ◽  
Tyrrell Conway ◽  
Kathryn A. Eaton

ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori mutants deficient in 6-phosphogluconate dehydratase (6PGD) were constructed. Colonization densities were lower and minimum infectious doses were higher for mutant strains than for wild-type strains. In spite of better colonization, however, wild-type strains did not displace the mutant in cocolonization experiments. Loss of 6PGD diminishes the fitness of H. pylori in vivo, but the pathway is nonessential for colonization.


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