Cyclic AMP Regulates Bacterial Persistence through Repression of the Oxidative Stress Response and SOS-Dependent DNA Repair in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli.

Bacterial persistence is a transient, nonheritable physiological state that provides tolerance to bactericidal antibiotics. The stringent response, toxin-antitoxin modules, and stochastic processes, among other mechanisms, play roles in this phenomenon. How persistence is regulated is relatively ill defined. Here we show that cyclic AMP, a global regulator of carbon catabolism and other core processes, is a negative regulator of bacterial persistence in uropathogenic Escherichia coli, as measured by survival after exposure to a ß-lactam antibiotic. This phenotype is regulated by a set of genes leading to an oxidative stress response and SOS-dependent DNA repair. Thus, persister cells tolerant to cell wall-acting antibiotics must cope with oxidative stress and DNA damage and these processes are regulated by cyclic AMP in uropathogenic E. coliIMPORTANCE Bacterial persister cells are important in relapsing infections in patients treated with antibiotics and also in the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Our results show that in uropathogenic E. coli, the second messenger cyclic AMP negatively regulates persister cell formation, since in its absence much more persister cells form that are tolerant to ß-lactams antibiotics. We reveal the mechanism to be decreased levels of reactive oxygen species, specifically hydroxyl radicals, and SOS-dependent DNA repair. Our findings suggest that the oxidative stress response and DNA repair are relevant pathways to target in the design of persister-specific antibiotic compounds.

A Novel Regulatory Cascade Involving BluR, YcgZ, and Lon Controls the Expression of Escherichia coli OmpF Porin.

In Escherichia coli, OmpF is an important outer membrane protein, which serves as a passive diffusion pore for small compounds including nutrients, antibiotics, and toxic compounds. OmpF expression responds to environmental changes such as temperature, osmolarity, nutrients availability, and toxic compounds via complex regulatory pathways involving transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. Our study identified a new regulatory cascade that controls the expression of OmpF porin. This pathway involves BluR, a transcriptional regulator repressing the expression of the ycgZ-ymgABC operon. We showed that BluR was responsible for the temperature-dependent regulation of the ycgZ-ymgABC operon. Furthermore, our results showed that independent expression of YcgZ led to a decreased activity of the ompF promoter, while YmgA, YmgB, and YmgC expression had no effect. We also determined that YcgZ accumulates in the absence of the Lon protease. Thus, mutation in bluR leads to de-repression of ycgZ-ymgABC transcription. With a second mutation in lon, YcgZ protein accumulates to reach levels that do not allow increased expression of OmpF under growth conditions that usually would, i.e., low temperature. With BluR responding to blue-light and temperature, this study sheds a new light on novel signals able to regulate OmpF porin.

Triclosan: an Instructive Tale.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a final rule to ban triclosan and 18 other antimicrobial chemicals from soaps. We applaud this rule specifically because of the associated risks that triclosan poses to the spread of antibiotic resistance throughout the environment. This persistent chemical constantly stresses bacteria to adapt, and behavior that promotes antibiotic resistance needs to be stopped immediately when the benefits are null.

Transposon-Sequencing Analysis Unveils Novel Genes Involved in the Generation of Persister Cells in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli.

Persister cells are highly tolerant to different antibiotics and are associated with relapsing infections. In order to understand this phenomenon further, we exposed a transposon library to a lethal concentration of ampicillin, and mutants that survived were identified by transposon sequencing (Tn-Seq). We determined that mutations related to carbon metabolism, cell envelope (cell wall generation and membrane proteins), and stress response have a role in persister cell generation.

Rapid radiation in bacteria leads to a division of labour.

The division of labour is a central feature of the most sophisticated biological systems, including genomes, multicellular organisms and societies, which took millions of years to evolve. Here we show that a well-organized and robust division of labour can evolve in a matter of days. Mutants emerge within bacterial colonies and work with the parent strain to gain new territory. The two strains self-organize in space: one provides a wetting polymer at the colony edge, whereas the other sits behind and pushes them both along. The emergence of the interaction is repeatable, bidirectional and only requires a single mutation to alter production of the intracellular messenger, cyclic-di-GMP. Our work demonstrates the power of the division of labour to rapidly solve biological problems without the need for long-term evolution or derived sociality. We predict that the division of labour will evolve frequently in microbial populations, where rapid genetic diversification is common.

Does use of the polyene natamycin as a food preservative jeopardise the clinical efficacy of amphotericin B? A word of concern.

Natamycin is a poorly soluble, polyene macrolide antifungal agent used in the food industry for the surface treatment of cheese and sausages. This use is not of safety concern. However, highly soluble natamycin-cyclodextrin inclusion complexes have been developed for the protection of beverages. This practice leads to high drug exposures exceeding the safety level. Apart from the definition of an acceptable daily dietary exposure to natamycin, its effect on the faecal flora as a reservoir for resistance has to be examined. Consumption of food to which natamycin has been added and mixed homogeneously, such as yoghurt, and in particular the addition of cyclodextrin inclusion complexes to beverages and wine generates high faecal natamycin concentrations resulting in high drug exposures of faecal Candida spp. Development of natamycin resistance has been observed in Candida spp. colonising the intestinal tract of patients following natamycin treatment of fungal infections. Horizontal gene transfer among different Candida spp. and within Aspergillus fumigatus spreads resistance. Therefore, it cannot be denied that use of natamycin for preservation of yoghurt and beverages may foster development of resistance to polyenes in Candida spp.

Importance of positioning for microbial evolution.

Microbes commonly live in dense surface-attached communities where cells layer on top of one another such that only those at the edges have unimpeded access to limiting nutrients and space. Theory predicts that this simple spatial effect, akin to plants competing for light in a forest, generates strong natural selection on microbial phenotypes. However, we require direct empirical tests of the importance of this spatial structuring. Here we show that spontaneous mutants repeatedly arise, push their way to the surface, and dominate colonies of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1. Microscopy and modeling suggests that these mutants use secretions to expand and push themselves up to the growth surface to gain the best access to oxygen. Physically mixing the cells in the colony, or introducing space limitations, largely removes the mutant's advantage, showing a key link between fitness and the ability of the cells to position themselves in the colony. We next follow over 500 independent adaptation events and show that all occur through mutation of a single repressor of secretions, RsmE, but that the mutants differ in competitiveness. This process allows us to map the genetic basis of their adaptation at high molecular resolution and we show how evolutionary competitiveness is explained by the specific effects of each mutation. By combining population level and molecular analyses, we demonstrate how living in dense microbial communities can generate strong natural selection to reach the growing edge.

Mechanism of action of the novel aminomethylcycline antibiotic omadacycline.

Omadacycline is a novel first-in-class aminomethylcycline with potent activity against important skin and pneumonia pathogens, including community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), ß-hemolytic streptococci, penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Legionella. In this work, the mechanism of action for omadacycline was further elucidated using a variety of models. Functional assays demonstrated that omadacycline is active against strains expressing the two main forms of tetracycline resistance (efflux and ribosomal protection). Macromolecular synthesis experiments confirmed that the primary effect of omadacycline is on bacterial protein synthesis, inhibiting protein synthesis with a potency greater than that of tetracycline. Biophysical studies with isolated ribosomes confirmed that the binding site for omadacycline is similar to that for tetracycline. In addition, unlike tetracycline, omadacycline is active in vitro in the presence of the ribosomal protection protein Tet(O).

Regulation of acrAB expression by cellular metabolites in Escherichia coli.

OBJECTIVES: Multidrug efflux pumps mediate resistance to antibiotics and other toxic compounds. We studied the role of AcrAB-TolC, the main efflux pump in Escherichia coli, in regulating gene expression. METHODS: Deletion mutants, an acrABp-lacZ fusion and reverse transcription-real-time quantitative PCR experiments were used to study the role of AcrAB-TolC and metabolism in regulating gene expression of the acrAB operon and its transcriptional regulators. RESULTS: Deletion of the acrB gene increased the expression of the acrAB operon. A similar induction of acrAB was found when acrA or tolC was deleted, and when the pump function was inhibited using phenylalanine-arginine-ß-naphthylamide. The induction of acrAB in the ΔacrB strain was totally (AcrR or SoxS) or partially (SoxR or MarA) prevented when the genes for these acrAB regulators were also deleted. The expression of soxS and marA, but not of acrR, was increased in the ΔacrB strain, which also showed altered expression of many other genes related to different cellular processes, including motility. Deletion of the metabolic genes entA and entE (enterobactin biosysnthesis), glpX (gluconeogenesis), cysH (cysteine biosynthesis) and purA (purine biosynthesis) also prevented activation of the acrAB promoter in the ΔacrB strain. Addition of the enterobactin biosynthesis intermediate metabolite 2,3-dihydroxybenzoate induced the expression of acrAB. CONCLUSIONS: These results together suggest a model in which the AcrAB-TolC pump effluxes cellular metabolites that are toxic and/or have a signalling role. If the pump is inactivated or inhibited, these metabolites would accumulate, inactivating AcrR and/or up-regulating soxS and marA expression, ultimately triggering the up-regulation of acrAB expression to restore homeostasis.

Amino acid residues involved in inactivation of the Escherichia coli multidrug resistance repressor MarR by salicylate, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and plumbagin.

MarR is the dedicated autorepressor of the marRAB operon found in seven genera of the Enterobacteraceae. The MarA transcriptional regulator directly activates numerous genes involved in multidrug resistance and other environmental responses. MarR is inactivated by certain phenolic ligands, such as salicylate, by an unknown mechanism. Our recent work has shown that several amino acid residues of Escherichia coli MarR affecting ligand binding are located between the dimerization and DNA-binding domains. To further characterize the ligand-binding region of MarR, we have now examined 7 point mutants generated by random mutagenesis and 11 site-directed alanine replacement mutants for inactivation by three ligands: salicylate, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and plumbagin. Inactivation of MarR was quantitated in intact cells by loss of MarR-mediated repression of a chromosomal mar-lacZ transcriptional fusion. The results showed that most of the residues important for ligand effectiveness lay in the α1 and α2 helices of MarR, between the putative DNA-binding domain and the dimerization domain of MarR, reinforcing our earlier findings. Moreover, the three ligands had different, but overlapping, sets of residues impacting their effects on MarR.

The contribution of PmrAB to the virulence of a clinical isolate of Escherichia coli.

Previous data from our laboratory suggest a relationship between increased pmrAB expression and virulence in an Escherichia coli mouse infection model of pyelonephritis. Competitive infections with wild type and pmrAB mutants showed that disruption of pmrAB caused decreased persistence of E. coli within the mouse kidney. These results were confirmed with plasmid-mediated complementation of the pmrAB mutant. Additionally, increased expression of pmrAB from this complementing plasmid in a previously attenuated marA-rob-soxS triple mutant displayed increased bacterial persistence in the infection when compared with the triple mutant alone. These findings suggest a role for this two-component regulatory system in the virulence of E. coli in a murine pyelonephritis model.

Pleiotropic effects of GacA on Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1 in vitro and in soil.

Pseudomonas species can exhibit phenotypic variation resulting from gacS or gacA mutation. P. fluorescens Pf0-1 is a gacA mutant and exhibits pleiotropic changes following the introduction of a functional allele. GacA enhances biofilm development while reducing dissemination in soil, suggesting that alternative Gac phenotypes enable Pseudomonas sp. to exploit varied environments.

Mutational analysis of the multiple-antibiotic resistance regulator MarR reveals a ligand binding pocket at the interface between the dimerization and DNA binding domains.

The Escherichia coli regulator MarR represses the multiple-antibiotic resistance operon marRAB and responds to phenolic compounds, including sodium salicylate, which inhibit its activity. Crystals obtained in the presence of a high concentration of salicylate indicated two possible salicylate sites, SAL-A and SAL-B. However, it was unclear whether these sites were physiologically significant or were simply a result of the crystallization conditions. A study carried out on MarR homologue MTH313 suggested the presence of a salicylate binding site buried at the interface between the dimerization and the DNA-binding domains. Interestingly, the authors of the study indicated a similar pocket conserved in the MarR structure. Since no mutagenesis analysis had been performed to test which amino acids were essential in salicylate binding, we examined the role of residues that could potentially interact with salicylate. We demonstrated that mutations in residues shown as interacting with salicylate at SAL-A and SAL-B in the MarR-salicylate structure had no effect on salicylate binding, indicating that these sites were not the physiological regulatory sites. However, some of these residues (P57, R86, M74, and R77) were important for DNA binding. Furthermore, mutations in residues R16, D26, and K44 significantly reduced binding to both salicylate and 2,4-dinitrophenol, while a mutation in residue H19 impaired the binding to 2,4-dinitrophenol only. These findings indicate, as for MTH313, the presence of a ligand binding pocket located between the dimerization and DNA binding domains.

The 216-bp marB gene of the marRAB operon in Escherichia coli encodes a periplasmic protein which reduces the transcription rate of marA.

The marRAB operon is conserved in seven genera of enteric bacteria (Escherichia, Shigella, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Cronobacter, and Citrobacter). MarA is a transcriptional regulator affecting many genes involved in resistance to stresses, and MarR is an autorepressor of the operon, but a role for the marB gene has been unclear. A recent work reported that deletion of marB causes resistance to certain stresses and increases the amount of marA transcript. We show here that the small (216 bp) marB gene encodes a protein, not an sRNA, because two different stop codons within the predicted open reading frame of marB prevented plasmid-borne marB from complementing ΔmarB::Kan. The ΔmarB::Kan mutation did not increase the stability of the marA transcript, suggesting that MarB does not destabilize the marA transcript but rather reduces its rate of transcription. Placing the putative signal sequence of MarB upstream of signal-sequence-less alkaline phosphatase guided the phosphatase to its normal periplasmic location. We conclude that MarB is a small periplasmic protein that represses the marRAB promoter by an indirect mechanism, possibly involving a signal to one of the cytoplasmic regulators of that promoter.

Honeybees and tetracycline resistance.

Like animals and people, insects can serve as both collectors and disseminators of antibiotic resistance genes, as exquisitely demonstrated by a recent study (B. Tian, N. H. Fadhil, J. E. Powell, W. K. Kwong, and N. A. Moran, mBio 3[6]:e00377-12, doi:10.1128/mBio.00377-12, 2012). Notably, the relatively confined ecosystem of the honeybee gut demonstrates a large propensity for harboring a diverse set of tetracycline resistance genes that reveal the environmental burden resulting from the long-time selective pressures of tetracycline use in the honeybee industry. As in humans and animals, these genes have become established in the native, nonpathogenic flora of the insect gut, adding credence to the concept that commensal floras provide large reservoirs of resistance genes that can readily move into pathogenic species. The homology of these tetracycline resistance determinants with those found in tetracycline-resistant bacteria associated with animals and humans strongly suggests a dissemination of similar or identical genes through shared ecosystems. The emergence of linked coresistances (ampicillin and tetracycline) following single-antibiotic therapy mirrors reports from other studies, namely, that long-term, single-agent therapy will result in resistance to multiple drugs. These results contrast with the marked absence of diverse, single- and multiple-drug resistance genes in wild and domestic bees that are not subjected to such selective pressures. Prospective studies that simultaneously track both resistance genes and antibiotic residues will go far in resolving some of the nagging questions that cloud our understanding of antibiotic resistance dissemination.

Involvement of MarR and YedS in carbapenem resistance in a clinical isolate of Escherichia coli from China.

A carbapenem-resistant clinical isolate of Escherichia coli, which lacked OmpF and OmpC porins, carried a marR mutation and expressed a functional yedS, a normally nontranslated gene. MarR and YedS are described here as having effects on the ability of this strain to resist carbapenems. Additionally, expression of YedS was regulated by the small RNA MicF in a MarA-dependent way. These findings illustrate how broadly bacteria can mutate within a selective clinical setting, in this case, resistance to carbapenems, by altering three porin genes and one regulatory gene.

The frequency of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in homes differing in their use of surface antibacterial agents.

Antibacterial agents are common in household cleaning and personal care products, but their long-range impacts on commensal and pathogenic household bacteria are largely unknown. In a one-time survey of 38 households from Boston, MA [19] and Cincinnati, OH [18], 13 kitchen and bathroom sites were sampled for total aerobic bacteria and screened for gram phenotype and susceptibility to six antibiotic drug families. The overall bacterial titers of both user (2 or more antibacterial cleaning or personal care products) and non-user (0 or 1 product) rooms were similar with sponges and sink drains consistently showing the highest overall titers and relatively high titers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The mean frequency of resistant bacteria ranged from ≤20 % to as high as 45 % and multi-drug resistance was common. However, no significant differences were noted between biocide users and non-users. The frequency of pathogen recovery was similar in both user and non-user groups.

Novel genes involved in Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1 motility and biofilm formation.

AdnA in Pseudomonas fluorescens, an ortholog of FleQ in P. aeruginosa, regulates both motility and flagellum-mediated attachment to various surfaces. A whole-genome microarray determined the AdnA transcriptome by comparing the gene expression pattern of wild-type Pf0-1 to that of Pf0-2x (adnA deletion mutant) in broth culture. In the absence of AdnA, expression of 92 genes was decreased, while 11 genes showed increased expression. Analysis of 16 of these genes fused to lacZ confirmed the microarray results. Several genes were further evaluated for their role in motility and biofilm formation. Two genes, Pfl01_1508 and Pfl01_1517, affected motility and had different effects on biofilm formation in Pf0-1. These two genes are predicted to specify proteins similar to the glycosyl transferases FgtA1 and FgtA2, which have been shown to be involved in virulence and motility in P. syringae. Three other genes, Pfl01_1516, Pfl01_1572, and Pfl01_1573, not previously associated with motility and biofilm formation in Pseudomonas had similar effects on biofilm formation in Pf0-1. Deletion of each of these genes led to different motility defects. Our data revealed an additional level of complexity in the control of flagellum function beyond the core genes known to be required and may yield insights into processes important for environmental persistence of P. fluorescens Pf0-1.

Regulation of polyphosphate kinase production by antisense RNA in Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1.

Pseudomonas spp. adapt rapidly to environmental fluctuations. Loss or overproduction of polyphosphate reduces the fitness of Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1, indicating the importance of the fine-tuning of polyphosphate production. An antisense RNA was investigated and shown to regulate the polyphosphate kinase gene (ppk) by a posttranscriptional mechanism reducing ppk transcript abundance.