Evaluation of a tetracycline-inducible promoter in Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo and its application in demonstrating the role of sigB in microcolony formation.

An inducible promoter system provides a powerful tool for studying the genetic basis for virulence. A variety of inducible systems have been used in other organisms, including pXyl-xylR-inducible promoter, the pSpac-lacI system, and the arabinose-inducible P(BAD) promoter, but each of these systems has limitations in its application to Staphylococcus aureus. In this study, we demonstrated the efficacy of a tetracycline-inducible promoter system in inducing gene expression in S. aureus in vitro and inside epithelial cells as well as in an animal model of infection. Using the xyl/tetO promoter::gfp(uvr) fusion carried on a shuttle plasmid, we demonstrated that dose-dependent tetracycline induction, as measured by bacterial fluorescence, occurred in each of the above environments while basal activation under noninduced conditions remained low. To ascertain how the system can be used to elucidate the genetic basis of a pathogenic phenotype, we cloned the sigB gene downstream of the inducible promoter. Induction of SigB expression led to dose-dependent attachment of the tested strain to polystyrene microtiter wells. Additionally, bacterial microcolony formation, an event preceding mature biofilm formation, also increased with tetracycline induction of SigB.

Association of acyl-CoA synthetase-1 with GLUT4-containing vesicles.

GLUT4, the glucose transporter present in insulin-sensitive tissues, resides in intracellular vesicular structures and translocates to the cell surface in response to insulin. In an attempt to identify proteins present in these structures, GLUT4-enriched vesicles prepared from rat adipocytes treated with or without insulin were prepared by sucrose velocity gradient centrifugation and immunoadsorbed with anti-GLUT4 antibody. We report here the sequence identification by high performance liquid chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry of a p75 protein band, long chain acyl-CoA synthetase-1, specifically present in immunoadsorbed GLUT4-containing vesicles but not in vesicles adsorbed by nonimmune serum. Acyl-CoA synthetase activity detected in GLUT4-enriched vesicles prepared by gradient centrifugation from insulin-treated adipocytes was decreased to about the same extent as GLUT4 protein. Additionally, immunoadsorbed GLUT4 vesicles were found to catalyze palmitoylation of proteins when incubated with labeled palmitate, a pathway that requires palmitate esterification with CoA. These data indicate that the insulin-sensitive membrane compartment that sequesters GLUT4 in fat cells contains long chain acyl-CoA synthetase-1 and its product fatty acyl-CoA, shown previously to be required for budding and fusion in membrane trafficking processes.