Identification and characterisation of a novel adhesin Ifp in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Brendan W Wren¹  Stewart J Hinchliffe¹  Philippa CR Strong¹  Olivia L Champion²  Hannah Patrick³  Steve Atkinson³ 

[1] Pathogen Molecular Biology Unit, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, WC1E 7HT, London, UK;School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Geoffrey Pope Building, Stocker Road, EX4 4QD, Exeter, UK;School of Molecular and Medical Sciences, Queens Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, NG7 2UH, Nottingham, UK;

关键词: Lipid Raft;    Maltose Binding Protein;    Kanamycin Cassette;    Terminal Cysteine;    Pseudotuberculosis Strain;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-11-85

 received in 2011-01-04, accepted in 2011-04-28,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn order to identify new virulence determinants in Y. pseudotuberculosis a comparison between its genome and that of Yersinia pestis was undertaken. This reveals dozens of pseudogenes in Y. pestis, which are still putatively functional in Y. pseudotuberculosis and may be important in the enteric lifestyle. One such gene, YPTB1572 in the Y. pseudotuberculosis IP32953 genome sequence, encodes a protein with similarity to invasin, a classic adhesion/invasion protein, and to intimin, the attaching and effacing protein from enteropathogenic (EPEC) and enterohaemorraghic (EHEC) Escherichia coli.ResultsWe termed YPTB1572 Ifp (Intimin family protein) and show that it is able to bind directly to human HEp-2 epithelial cells. Cysteine and tryptophan residues in the C-terminal region of intimin that are essential for function in EPEC and EHEC are conserved in Ifp. Protein binding occurred at distinct foci on the HEp-2 cell surface and can be disrupted by mutation of a single cysteine residue at the C-terminus of the protein. Temporal expression analysis using lux reporter constructs revealed that ifp is expressed at late log phase at 37°C in contrast to invasin, suggesting that Ifp is a late stage adhesin. An ifp defined mutant showed a reduction in adhesion to HEp-2 cells and was attenuated in the Galleria mellonella infection model.ConclusionA new Y. pseudotuberculosis adhesin has been identified and characterised. This Ifp is a new member in the family of invasin/intimin outer membrane adhesins.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Strong et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.