Producing Gene Deletions in <em>Escherichia coli</em> by P1 Transduction with Excisable Antibiotic Resistance Cassettes

A first approach to study the function of an unknown gene in bacteria is to create a knock-out of this gene. Here, we describe a robust and fast protocol ...

University of Oslo

Autotransporter proteins comprise a large family of virulence factors that consist of a β-barrel translocation unit and an extracellular effector or passenger domain. The β-barrel anchors the protein to the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria and facilitates the transport of the passenger domain onto the cell surface. By inserting an epitope tag into the N terminus of the passenger domain of the inverse autotransporter intimin, we generated a mutant defective in autotransport. Using this stalled mutant, we could show that (i) at the time point of stalling, the β-barrel appears folded; (ii) the stalled autotransporter is associated with BamA and SurA; (iii) the stalled intimin is decorated with large amounts of SurA; (iv) the stalled autotransporter is not degraded by periplasmic proteases; and (v) inverse autotransporter passenger domains are translocated by a hairpin mechanism. Our results suggest a function for the BAM complex not only in insertion and folding of the β-barrel but also for passenger translocation. 

The inverse autotransporter intimin exports its passenger domain via a hairpin intermediate.

Intimin and invasin are adhesins and central virulence factors of attaching and effacing bacteria, such as enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli, and enteropathogenic Yersiniae, respectively. These proteins are prototypes of a large family of adhesins distributed widely in Gram-negative bacteria. It is now evident that this protein family represents a previously unrecognized autotransporter secretion system, termed type Ve secretion. In contrast to classical autotransport, where the transmembrane β-barrel domain or translocation unit is C-terminal to the extracellular region or passenger domain, type Ve-secreted proteins have an inverted topology with the passenger domain C-terminal to the translocation unit; hence the term inverse autotransporter. This minireview covers the recent advances in elucidating the structure and biogenesis of inverse autotransporters. 

The inverse autotransporter family: intimin, invasin and related proteins.

The trimeric autotransporter adhesin Yersinia adhesin A is the prototype of the type Vc secretion systems. It is expressed by enteropathogenic Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis strains, but not by Yersinia pestis. A characteristic trait of YadA is its modular composition and trimeric nature. YadA consists of an N-terminal passenger domain which is exposed on the bacterial cell surface. The translocation of this passenger onto the surface is facilitated by a C-terminal β-barrel domain which concomitantly anchors YadA into the outer membrane with three YadA monomers contributing to the formation of a single β-barrel. In Y. enterocolitica, but not Y. pseudotuberculosis, YadA is a decisive virulence factor and its deletion renders the bacteria virtually avirulent in mouse models of infection. This striking importance of YadA in infection may derive from its manifold functions in host cell interaction. Presumably the most important function of YadA is that it mediates adhesion to extracellular matrix components of eukaryotic host cells. Only tight adhesion allows for the injection of "anti-host" effector proteins via a type III secretion system into the host cell cytosol. These effector proteins enable Yersinia to subvert the host immune system in order to replicate and establish infection. YadA is also essential for the survival of Y. enterocolitica upon contact with serum, an important immune-evasion mechanism called serum resistance. To this end, YadA interacts with several components of the host complement system, the first line of immune defense. This review will summarize recent findings about the structure and biogenesis of YadA and its interactions with the host complement system. 

Yersinia adhesin A (YadA)--beauty & beast.

In addition to the cytoplasmic membrane, Gram-negative bacteria have a second lipid bilayer, the outer membrane, which is the de facto barrier between the cell and the extracellular milieu. Virtually all integral proteins of the outer membrane form β-barrels, which are inserted into the outer membrane by the BAM complex. Some outer membrane proteins, like the porins and trimeric autotransporter adhesins, are multimeric. In the former case, the porin trimer consists of three individual β-barrels, whereas in the latter, the single autotransporter β-barrel domain is formed by three separate polypeptides. This chapter reviews methods to investigate the folding and membrane insertion of multimeric OMPs and further explains the use of a BamA depletion strain to study the effects of the BAM complex on multimeric OMPs in E. coli. 

Assessing the Outer Membrane Insertion and Folding of Multimeric Transmembrane β-Barrel Proteins.

The Yersiniae are a group of Gram-negative coccobacilli inhabiting a wide range of habitats. The genus harbors three recognized human pathogens: Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis, which both cause gastrointestinal disease, and Y. pestis, the causative agent of plague. These three organisms have served as models for a number of aspects of infection biology, including adhesion, immune evasion, evolution of pathogenic traits, and retracing the course of ancient pandemics. The virulence of the pathogenic Yersiniae is heavily dependent on a number of adhesin molecules. Some of these, such as the Yersinia adhesin A and invasin of the enteropathogenic species, and the pH 6 antigen of Y. pestis, have been extensively studied. However, genomic sequencing has uncovered a host of other adhesins present in these organisms, the functions of which are only starting to be investigated. Here, we review the current state of knowledge on the adhesin molecules present in the Yersiniae, and their functions and putative roles in the infection process.

Yersinia adhesins: An arsenal for infection.

In this chapter, we review the computational approaches that have led to a new generation of vaccines in recent years. There are many alternative routes to develop vaccines based on the technology of reverse vaccinology. We focus here on bacterial infectious diseases, describing the general workflow from bioinformatic predictions of antigens and epitopes down to examples where such predictions have been used successfully for vaccine development. 

Reverse Vaccinology: The Pathway from Genomes and Epitope Predictions to Tailored Recombinant Vaccines.

Intimin is an essential adhesin of attaching and effacing organisms such as entropathogenic Escherichia coli It is also the prototype of type Ve secretion or inverse autotransport, where the extracellular C-terminal region or passenger is exported with the help of an N-terminal transmembrane β-barrel domain. We recently reported a stalled secretion intermediate of intimin, where the passenger is located in the periplasm but the β-barrel is already inserted into the membrane. Stalling of this mutant is due to the insertion of an epitope tag at the very N terminus of the passenger. Here, we examined how this insertion disrupts autotransport and found that it causes misfolding of the N-terminal immunoglobulin (Ig)-like domain D00. We could also stall the secretion by making an internal deletion in D00, and introducing the epitope tag into the second Ig-like domain, D0, also resulted in reduced passenger secretion. In contrast to many classical autotransporters, where a proximal folding core in the passenger is required for secretion, the D00 domain is dispensable, as the passenger of an intimin mutant lacking D00 entirely is efficiently exported. Furthermore, the D00 domain is slightly less stable than the D0 and D1 domains, unfolding at ∼200 piconewtons (pN) compared with ∼250 pN for D0 and D1 domains as measured by atomic force microscopy. Our results support a model where the secretion of the passenger is driven by sequential folding of the extracellular Ig-like domains, leading to vectorial transport of the passenger domain across the outer membrane in an N to C direction.

Secretion of the Intimin Passenger Domain Is Driven by Protein Folding.

Inverse autotransporters comprise the recently identified type Ve secretion system and are exemplified by intimin from enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli and invasin from enteropathogenic Yersiniae. These proteins share a common domain architecture and promote bacterial adhesion to host cells. Here, we identified and characterized two putative inverse autotransporter genes in the fish pathogen Yersinia ruckeri NVH_3758, namely yrInv (for Y. ruckeri invasin) and yrIlm (for Y. ruckeri invasin-like molecule). When trying to clone the highly repetitive genes for structural and functional studies, we experienced problems in obtaining PCR products. PCR failures and the highly repetitive nature of inverse autotransporters prompted us to sequence the genome of Y. ruckeri NVH_3758 using PacBio sequencing, which produces some of the longest average read lengths available in the industry at this moment. According to our sequencing data, YrIlm is composed of 2603 amino acids (7812bp) and has a molecular mass of 256.4kDa. Based on the new genome information, we performed PCR analysis on four non-sequenced Y. ruckeri strains as well as the sequenced. Y. ruckeri type strain. We found that the genes are variably present in the strains, and that the length of yrIlm, when present, also varies. In addition, the length of the gene product for all strains, including the type strain, was much longer than expected based on deposited sequences. The internal repeats of the yrInv gene product are highly diverged, but represent the same bacterial immunoglobulin-like domains as in yrIlm. Using qRT-PCR, we found that yrIlm and yrInv are differentially expressed under conditions relevant for pathogenesis. In addition, we compared the genomic context of both genes in the newly sequenced Y. ruckeri strain to all available PacBio-sequenced Y. ruckeri genomes, and found indications of recent events of horizontal gene transfer. Taken together, this study demonstrates and highlights the power of Single Molecule Real-Time technology for sequencing highly repetitive proteins, and sheds light on the genetic events that gave rise to these highly repetitive genes in a commercially important fish pathogen.

The repeat structure of two paralogous genes, Yersinia ruckeri invasin (yrInv) and a "Y. ruckeri invasin-like molecule", (yrIlm) sheds light on the evolution of adhesive capacities of a fish pathogen.

Almost all integral membrane proteins found in the outer membranes of Gram-negative bacteria belong to the transmembrane β-barrel family. These proteins are not only important for nutrient uptake and homeostasis, but are also involved in such processes as adhesion, protein secretion, biofilm formation, and virulence. As surface exposed molecules, outer membrane β-barrel proteins are also potential drug and vaccine targets. High production levels of heterologously expressed proteins are desirable for biochemical and especially structural studies, but over-expression and subsequent purification of membrane proteins, including outer membrane proteins, can be challenging. Here, we present a set of deletion mutants derived from  BL21(DE3) designed for the over-expression of recombinant outer membrane proteins. These strains harbor deletions of four genes encoding abundant β-barrel proteins in the outer membrane (OmpA, OmpC, OmpF, and LamB), both single and in all combinations of double, triple, and quadruple knock-outs. The sequences encoding these outer membrane proteins were deleted completely, leaving only a minimal scar sequence, thus preventing the possibility of genetic reversion. Expression tests in the quadruple mutant strain with four test proteins, including a small outer membrane β-barrel protein and variants thereof as well as two virulence-related autotransporters, showed significantly improved expression and better quality of the produced proteins over the parent strain. Differences in growth behavior and aggregation in the presence of high salt were observed, but these phenomena did not negatively influence the expression in the quadruple mutant strain when handled as we recommend. The strains produced in this study can be used for outer membrane protein production and purification, but are also uniquely useful for labeling experiments for biophysical measurements in the native membrane environment.

Jack C. Leo

Evolution and Genetics,
Department of Biosciences,
Evolution and Genetics, Department of Biosciences

University of Oslo

Producing Gene Deletions in Escherichia coli by P1 Transduction with Excisable Antibiotic Resistance Cassettes

Jack C. Leo

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Evolution and Genetics,Department of Biosciences,Evolution and Genetics, Department of Biosciences

University of Oslo

Producing Gene Deletions in Escherichia coli by P1 Transduction with Excisable Antibiotic Resistance Cassettes

Evolution and Genetics,
Department of Biosciences,
Evolution and Genetics, Department of Biosciences