Is a NAD pyrophosphatase activity necessary for Haemophilus influenzae type b multiplication in the blood stream?

Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute requirement for factor V because it lacks all the biosynthetic enzymes necessary for the de novo synthesis of NAD. Factor V can be provided as either nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide (NAD), nicotinamide mono-nucleotide (NMN) or nicotinamide riboside (NR) in vitro, but little is known about the source or the mechanism of uptake for factor V in vivo. Recently, a hypothetical open reading frame (ORF), termed nadN, was identified to encode a gene product essential for H. influenzae growth on NAD. Here, we report its role in the virulent H. influenzae serotype b strain Eagan. Our results indicate that NadN of type b Eagan strains is involved in NAD uptake and in processing NAD to NR, which appears to be the substrate for an as yet unidentified cytoplasmic membrane NR transport system. Furthermore, we present data showing that H. influenzae type b nadN mutants are able to survive as well as Eagan, in vivo in the five-day-old infant rat model of human invasive disease. NAD pyrophosphatase and NMN 5'-nucleotidase activities were present in rat and human serum, implying that under infection conditions H. influenzae may obtain NR directly from its host.

NadN and e (P4) are essential for utilization of NAD and nicotinamide mononucleotide but not nicotinamide riboside in Haemophilus influenzae.

Haemophilus influenzae has an absolute requirement for NAD (factor V) because it lacks almost all the biosynthetic enzymes necessary for the de novo synthesis of that cofactor. Factor V can be provided as either nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide (NAD), nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), or nicotinamide riboside (NR) in vitro, but little is known about the source or the mechanism of uptake of these substrates in vivo. As shown by us earlier, at least two gene products are involved in the uptake of NAD, the outer membrane lipoprotein e (P4), which has phosphatase activity and is encoded by hel, and a periplasmic NAD nucleotidase, encoded by nadN. It has also been observed that the latter gene product is essential for H. influenzae growth on media supplemented with NAD. In this report, we describe the functions and substrates of these two proteins as they act together in an NAD utilization pathway. Data are provided which indicate that NadN harbors not only NAD pyrophosphatase but also NMN 5'-nucleotidase activity. The e (P4) protein is also shown to have NMN 5'-nucleotidase activity, recognizing NMN as a substrate and releasing NR as its product. Insertion mutants of nadN or deletion and site-directed mutants of hel had attenuated growth and a reduced uptake phenotype when NMN served as substrate. A hel and nadN double mutant was only able to grow in the presence of NR, whereas no uptake of NMN was observed.

NADP and NAD utilization in Haemophilus influenzae.

Exogenous NAD utilization or pyridine nucleotide cycle metabolism is used by many bacteria to maintain NAD turnover and to limit energy-dependent de novo NAD synthesis. The genus Haemophilus includes several important pathogenic bacterial species that require NAD as an essential growth factor. The molecular mechanisms of NAD uptake and processing are understood only in part for Haemophilus. In this report, we present data showing that the outer membrane lipoprotein e(P4), encoded by the hel gene, and an exported 5'-nucleotidase (HI0206), assigned as nadN, are necessary for NAD and NADP utilization. Lipoprotein e(P4) is characterized as an acid phosphatase that uses NADP as substrate. Its phosphatase activity is inhibited by compounds such as adenosine or NMN. The nadN gene product was characterized as an NAD-nucleotidase, responsible for the hydrolysis of NAD. H. influenzae hel and nadN mutants had defined growth deficiencies. For growth, the uptake and processing of the essential cofactors NADP and NAD required e(P4) and 5'-nucleotidase. In addition, adenosine was identified as a potent growth inhibitor of wild-type H. influenzae strains, when NADP was used as the sole source of nicotinamide-ribosyl.

Characterization of ferrochelatase (hemH) mutations in Haemophilus influenzae.

Haemophilus influenzae lacks most of the biosynthetic enzymes for hemin synthesis. However, the organism has retained ferrochelatase activity, which we identified to be encoded by a hemH-homologous gene. In this report we characterize the growth physiology conferred by hemH mutations under infection and laboratory conditions.

Genetic rearrangements of the regions adjacent to genes encoding heat-labile enterotoxins (eltAB) of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli strains.

One of the most common bacterially mediated diarrheal infections is caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains. ETEC-derived plasmids are responsible for the distribution of the genes encoding the main toxins, namely, the heat-labile and heat-stable enterotoxins. The origins and transfer modes (intra- or interplasmid) of the toxin-encoding genes have not been characterized in detail. In this study, we investigated the DNA regions located near the heat-labile enterotoxin-encoding genes (eltAB) of several clinical isolates. It was found that the eltAB region is flanked by conserved 236- and 280-bp regions, followed by highly variable DNA sequences which consist mainly of partial insertion sequence (IS) elements. Furthermore, we demonstrated that rearrangements of the eltAB region of one particular isolate, which harbors an IS91R sequence next to eltAB, could be produced by a recA-independent but IS91 sequence-dependent mechanism. Possible mechanisms of dissemination of IS element-associated enterotoxin-encoding genes are discussed.

In vivo transposon mutagenesis in Haemophilus influenzae.

In order to devise an in vivo insertion mutagenesis scheme for Haemophilus influenzae, a novel set of transposons has been constructed. These are Tn10-based minitransposons carried on pACYC184- and pACYC177-based replicons, which are suitable for in vivo transposition in H. influenzae. The transposon delivery system was designed to contain an H. influenzae-specific uptake signal sequence which facilitates DNA transformation into H. influenzae. The following mini-Tn10 elements have been made suitable for specific tasks in H. influenzae: (i) Tn10d-cat, which can be used to generate chloramphenicol-selectable insertion mutations; (ii) Tn10d-bla, an ampicillin-selectable translational fusion system allowing the detection of membrane or secreted proteins; and (iii) Tn10d-lacZcat, a chloramphenicol-selectable lacZ transcriptional fusion system. For the rapid identification of the transposon insertions, a PCR fragment enrichment method was developed. This report demonstrates that this in vivo mutagenesis technique is a convenient tool for the analysis of biochemical and regulatory pathways in the human pathogen H. influenzae.

In vivo and in vitro studies on interactions between the components of the hemolysin (HlyA) secretion machinery of Escherichia coli.

The glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin blocks cell wall synthesis in Escherichia coli only when it can reach its target site in the periplasm. In vivo, sensitivity to vancomycin is enhanced in the presence of the hemolysin (hly) determinant of E. coli or its translocator portion hlyBD. Two different mutations in hlyD alter the cell's susceptibility to vancomycin: mutations in the tolC-homologous region of hlyD increase vancomycin resistance, whereas mutations at the 3'-terminus of hlyD lead to hypersensitivity to vancomycin and to the accumulation of large periplasmic and cytoplasmic pools of this antibiotic in E. coli. These effects are only observed in the presence of functional HlyB and TolC, the two other components of the hemolysin secretion machinery. A defect in TolC causes hyperresistance to vancomycin, even when present together with a mutant HlyD protein which in the presence of TolC renders E. coli hypersensitive to vancomycin. Lipid bilayer experiments in vitro revealed specific interactions between TolC and vancomycin or HlyD protein. Second-site suppressor mutations in hlyD and hlyB were obtained, which abolish the hypersensitive phenotype caused by the 3'-terminal mutations in hlyD. Our results are compatible with the idea that (a) TolC, together with the TolC-homologous part of HlyD, forms a pore in the outer membrane through which hemolysin is released and vancomycin taken up; and (b) the C-terminal sequence of HlyD interacts with periplasmic loop(s) of HlyB to form a closed channel spanning the periplasm.

Identification and characterization of two functional domains of the hemolysin translocator protein HlyD.

Secretion of Escherichia coli hemolysin is mediated by a sec-independent pathway which requires the products of at least three genes, hlyB, hlyD and tolC. Two regions of HlyD were studied. The first region (region A), consisting of the 33-amino acid, C-terminal part of the HlyD protein, is predicted to form a potential helix-loop-helix structure. This sequence is conserved among HlyD analogues of similar transport systems of other bacterial species. Using site-directed mutagenesis, we showed that the amino acids Leu475, Glu477 and Arg478 of this region are essential for HlyD function. The last amino acid of HlyD, Arg478, is possibly involved in the release of the HlyA protein, since cells bearing a hlyD gene mutant at this position produce similar amounts of HlyA to the wild-type strain, but most of the protein remains cell-associated. Competition experiments between wild-type and mutant HlyD proteins indicate that region A interacts directly with a component of the secretion apparatus. The second region of HlyD (region B), located between amino acids Leu127 and Leu170, is highly homologous to the otherwise unrelated outer membrane protein TolC. Deletion of this region abolishes secretion of hemolysin. This sequence of HlyD also seems to interact with a component of the hemolysin secretion machinery since a hybrid HlyD protein carrying the corresponding TolC sequence, although inactive in the transport of HlyA, is able to displace wild-type HlyD from the secretion apparatus.