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1 Program Infection and Immunity, Fundació Caubet-CIMERA Illes Balears, Bunyola, Spain
2 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES), Bunyola, Spain
3 Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
4 Área de Microbiología, Facultad Biología, Universitat Illes Balears, Palma Mallorca, Spain
Correspondence
José A. Bengoechea
bengoechea{at}caubet-cimera.es
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ABSTRACT |
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 TOP ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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-defensin 1 (HNP-1) for unencapsulated K. pneumoniae, Escherichia coli and P. aeruginosa PAO1. Polymyxin B or HNP-1 released CPS from capsulated K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae serotype 3 and P. aeruginosa overexpressing CPS. Moreover, this material also reduced the bactericidal activity of APs. We postulate that APs may trigger in vivo the release of CPS, which in turn will protect bacteria against APs. We found that anionic CPSs, but not cationic or uncharged ones, blocked the bactericidal activity of APs by binding them, thereby reducing the amount of peptides reaching the bacterial surface. Supporting this, polycations inhibited such interaction and the bactericidal activity was restored. We postulate that trapping of APs by anionic CPSs is an additional selective virulence trait of these molecules, which could be considered as bacterial decoys for APs.
-defensin 1 |
INTRODUCTION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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-helical peptides, the extended peptides and the loop-structured peptides (Brogden, 2005
; Hancock & Chapple, 1999; Nicolas & Mor, 1995). Despite their diverse size and structures, nearly all APs have a net positive charge and the three-dimensional folding results in an amphipathic structure (Brogden, 2005; Hancock & Chapple, 1999; Nicolas & Mor, 1995). The microbicidal action of APs is initiated through electrostatic interaction with the bacterial surface (Brogden, 2005; Hancock & Chapple, 1999; Nicolas & Mor, 1995; Vaara, 1992). For some peptides, lethality is linked to membrane perturbations, although there is an increasing body of evidence indicating that APs may have intracellular targets (Brogden, 2005).
Bacteria have developed diverse strategies to resist APs and it is generally accepted that resistance to APs is a virulence phenotype. The strategies for resistance include the alteration of cell surface charge, the active efflux of APs by energy-driven transporters and the proteolytic degradation of APs (Nizet, 2006; Peschel, 2002). Examples of these strategies are the addition of aminoarabinose to LPS lipid A backbone (Gunn et al., 1998), the efflux of APs by the MtrCDE pump from Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Shafer et al., 1998) and the degradation of APs by the PgtE protease from Salmonella enterica (Guina et al., 2000). Another strategy of resistance could involve trapping of APs, which would reduce the amount of peptides reaching the bacterial surface. Few examples are known of this strategy. Staphylococcus aureus and group A Streptococcus secrete proteins that complex APs, neutralizing their bactericidal activity (Frick et al., 2003; Jin et al., 2004).
Many pathogens express capsule polysaccharides (CPSs), which play a role in avoidance of phagocytosis and complement resistance. In previous work, we analysed whether CPS plays a role in the resistance to APs. We showed that mutants of Klebsiella pneumoniae lacking CPS were more sensitive to APs than wild-type strains (Campos et al., 2004). A higher susceptibility of a Neisseria meningitidis CPS mutant to APs was also observed (Spinosa et al., 2007). Mechanistically, it has been speculated that CPS would act as a protective shield on the bacterial surface (Campos et al., 2004; Spinosa et al., 2007). In contrast, a Campylobacter jejuni mutant lacking CPS was as resistant as the wild-type to APs, whereas capsulated Streptococcus pneumoniae from serotypes 1, 2 and 4 were even more sensitive to APs than the isogenic CPS mutants (Beiter et al., 2008; Zilbauer et al., 2005). For the latter, it has been speculated that CPS might mask surface modifications implicated in the resistance to APs (Beiter et al., 2008).
CPSs vary widely in their chemical composition yet most of them are anionic. Therefore, even though bacteria-bound CPS might not play any role in the resistance to APs, we hypothesized that free anionic CPSs may trap APs, preventing them from reaching membrane targets. A number of studies argue in favour of the presence of free CPS in vivo. For example, K. pneumoniae sheds an extracellular complex which contains mainly CPS (Straus et al., 1985). Release of CPS from S. pneumoniae can be expected at least due to the induction of natural competence-dependent cell lysis (Steinmoen et al., 2002, 2003). In this scenario, pathogens would use anionic CPSs as decoys to resist APs. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been proven yet.
In this study, we show that free CPSs from three important human pathogens, K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, bind APs, thereby neutralizing their bactericidal activity. Moreover, APs released CPSs from the bacterial surfaces and this material acted in the same manner as purified CPSs.
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METHODS |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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). Klebsiella pneumoniae 52145 is a clinical isolate (serotype O1 : K2), previously described (Nassif et al., 1989); the chemical structure of its CPS has been reported (Corsaro et al., 2005). Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and PAOMA (a mucA mutant derived from strain PAO1) were kindly provided by A. Oliver (Servicio de Microbiología, Hospital Son Dureta, Palma de Mallorca, Spain). Mutation in mucA causes alginate overexpression (Boucher et al., 1997; Martin et al., 1993). A high proportion of clinical isolates obtained from patients affected by chronic lung diseases harbour point mutations in mucA (Boucher et al., 1997; Martin et al., 1993). The chemical composition of alginate has been described (Sherbrock-Cox et al., 1984). Streptococcus pneumoniae strains M24LS (expressing CPS) and M24L (isogenic mutant not expressing CPS) have been previously described (Arrecubieta et al., 1994). E. coli, K. pneumonia and P. aeruginosa strains were grown in Luria–Bertani (LB) at 37 °C. S. pneumoniae strains were grown at 37 °C on blood agar plates or in Todd–Hewitt Broth supplemented with 0.5 % yeast extract as previously described (Arrecubieta et al., 1994).
Reagents.
Polymyxin B, human neutrophil -defensin 1 (HNP-1), DEAE-dextran and chitosan (low molecular mass) were purchased from Sigma. Dansyl-polymyxin B was obtained from Molecular Probes. Purified CPSs from S. pneumoniae serotypes 3, 1 and 33F were purchased from ATCC (numbers 17-X, 25-X and 67-X respectively). The chemical composition of all known CPSs from S. pneumoniae has been published (Kamerling, 2000).
K. pneumoniae 52145-
wcaK2 mutant construction.
To obtain a K. pneumoniae 52145 mutant lacking CPS, a chromosomal in-frame wcaK2 deletion was generated using a previously described strategy (Link et al., 1997). Primers for manC mutant construction were designed from the known K. pneumoniae K2 gene cluster sequence (Arakawa et al., 1995). Primer pairs ManCa (5'-CGCGGATCCGCATTGCTAACCTCCTGCT-3'; BamHI site is in italic)/ManCb (5'-CCCATCCACTAAACTTAAACACAGACGGAGGAACTGTTTC-3') and ManCc (5'-TGTTTAAGTTTAGTGGATGGGATCCAGTCGGGGTCGTAC-3')/ManCd (5'-CGCGGATCCCGGGAACTGGTTCTCCTC-3'; BamHI site is in italic) were used in two sets of asymmetrical PCRs to amplify DNA fragments of 624 (ab) and 529 (cd) bp, respectively. DNA fragments ManCa-b and ManCc-d were annealed at their overlapping region (underlined nucleotides in primers ManCb and ManCc) and amplified by PCR as a single fragment (1132 bp), using primers ManCa and ManCd. The fusion product was purified, BamHI-digested and ligated into BamHI-digested and phosphatase-treated pKO3 vector (Link et al., 1997) to give pKO3wcaK2. This plasmid was electroporated into K. pneumoniae 52145 and a non-polar manC mutant was obtained as previously described (Regue et al., 2005). The mutation was confirmed by sequencing of the whole construct in an amplified PCR product. Mutant 52145-wcaK2 was completely resistant to the CPS-specific phage 
2 and their cells did not react with anti-K2 specific antibodies. In addition, the presence of cell-bound CPS was observed in the wild-type strain but not in mutant 52145-wcaK2 by electron microscopy (data not shown).
CPS purification.
CPS from K. pneumoniae 52145 was obtained using the hot phenol-water method (Campos et al., 2004; Westphal & Jann, 1963). CPS from P. aeruginosa PAOMA mutant, also known as alginate, was extracted exactly as previously described (Cobb et al., 2004; Ma et al., 1998). Polysaccharides were dissolved in distilled water, dialysed against water and freeze-dried. To purify these preparations, they were dispersed (10 mg ml–1) in 0.8 % NaCl/0.05 % NaN3/0.1 M Tris/HCl (pH 7) and digested with nucleases (50 mg ml–1 of DNase II type V and RNase A; Sigma) for 18 h at 37 °C. Proteinase K was added (50 µg ml–1; Merck), and the mixture was incubated for 1 h at 55 °C and for 24 h at room temperature. The proteinase K digestion was repeated twice and the polysaccharides were precipitated by adding 5 vols methanol plus 1 % (v/v) of a saturated solution of sodium acetate in methanol. After incubation for 24 h at –20 °C, the pellet was recovered by centrifugation, and dissolved in distilled water. The LPS was removed by ultracentrifugation (105 000 g, 16 h, 4 °C). The enzymic treatment and ultracentrifugation steps were repeated another time. Finally, samples were freeze-dried.
CPS was quantified by determining the concentration of uronic acid in the samples, using a modified carbazole assay (Bitter & Muir, 1962), exactly as described by Rahn & Whitfield (2003). Protein content in this preparation was quantified using the Coomassie protein assay (Pierce) referenced against a BSA standard. LPS presence was determined by measuring the 3-deoxy-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid (Kdo) content by the thiobarbituric acid method modified to correct interference due to deoxysugars (Díaz-Aparicio et al., 1993). Protein content was less than 0.5 % and Kdo content was less than 0.1 %.
AP resistance assay.
Bacteria were grown at 37 °C in 5 ml LB, harvested (5000 g, 15 min, 5 °C) in the exponential phase of growth (OD600 0.6) and washed three times with PBS. A suspension containing approximately 1x105 c.f.u. ml–1 was prepared in 10 mM PBS (pH 6.5), 1 % Tryptone Soya Broth (TSB; Oxoid), 100 mM NaCl. Aliquots (5 µl) of this suspension were mixed in Eppendorf tubes with various concentrations of AP or AP and CPSs. In all cases the final volume was 30 µl. After 1 h incubation, the contents of the Eppendorf tubes were plated on LB agar. Colony counts were determined and results were expressed as percentages of the colony count of bacteria not exposed to antibacterial agents. The 50 % inhibitory concentration of AP (IC50) was defined as the concentration producing a 50 % reduction in the colony counts compared with bacteria not exposed to the antibacterial agent. All experiments were done with duplicate samples on four independent occasions.
Radial diffusion assay.
To assess the sensitivity to APs, the previously described radial diffusion assay was also used (Bengoechea et al., 2004; Lehrer et al., 1991). Briefly, an underlay gel that contained 1 % (w/v) agarose (SeaKem LE agarose, FMC), 2 mM HEPES (pH 7.2), and 0.3 mg TSB powder per ml was equilibrated at 50 °C, and inoculated with the different bacteria to a final concentration of 5x105 c.f.u. per ml of molten gel. This gel was poured into standard square Petri dishes (10x10x1.5 cm), and after solidification, small wells of 15 µl capacity were carved. Aliquots of 10 µl of APs or APs plus CPSs were added to the wells and the plates were incubated for 3 h at 37 °C. After that, a 30 ml overlay gel composed of 1 % agarose and 6 % TSB powder in water was poured on top of the previous one and the plates were incubated at 37 °C. After 18 h, the diameters of the inhibition haloes were measured to the nearest 1 mm, and after subtracting the diameter of the well, were expressed in inhibition units (10 units=1 mm). The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was estimated by performing linear regression analysis (units vs log10 concentration) and determining the x-axis intercepts (Bengoechea et al., 2004; Lehrer et al., 1991). All the experiments were run in quadruplicate on three independent occasions.
Binding of APs to CPSs.
In Eppendorf tubes, different amounts of CPSs (final concentrations ranging from 10 to 0.01 µg ml–1) were prepared in 5 mM HEPES (pH 7.5) and mixed with polymyxin B (final concentration 16 µg ml–1) or HNP-1 (final concentration 100 µg ml–1) to get a final volume of 50 µl. When the effect of the polycations DEAE-dextran or chitosan was tested, the amount of CPS used was 1 µg ml–1, the concentrations of both polycations were 0.5 µg ml–1, and the concentrations of polymyxin B and HNP-1 were the same as before. Suspensions were incubated for 30 min at room temperature (22–25 °C). The suspensions were centrifuged (12 000 g, 10 min), the supernatant centrifuged two more times under the same conditions, and the unbound AP measured in a bioassay (see radial diffusion assay above), using E. coli C600 as indicator bacteria. The amount of AP was estimated from the diameter of the inhibition halo by comparison with AP standards on the same plate. Results were expressed as percentages of bound peptide. All measurements were done in triplicate on three separate occasions.
CPS released by APs.
Bacterial strains were grown at 37 °C in 5 ml of LB (K. pneumoniae 52145 and P. aeruginosa mucA) or Todd–Hewitt Broth supplemented with 0.5 % yeast extract (S. pneumoniae). At the exponential phase of growth (OD600 0.6) bacterial cells were harvested (5000 g, 15 min, 5 °C), washed twice with PBS and resuspended in 5 ml PBS. Either polymyxin B or HNP-1 was added to the suspensions, which were incubated for 15 min at 37 °C. Control experiments revealed that this treatment caused neither bacterial lysis nor decrease in viability. A 2 ml sample from this suspension was centrifuged (4000 g, 20 min, 22 °C) and the upper 1.5 ml of the supernatant was processed to determine the amount of CPS present. Aliquots of these supernatants were plated and no c.f.u. were recovered. The hot phenol-water method followed by the modified carbazole method was used to purify and quantify the CPS present in the supernatants (Rahn & Whitfield, 2003). Neither polymyxin B nor HNP-1 affects the quantification of CPS. Results were expressed as amount of CPS released (in µg) per 105 c.f.u.. All measurements were done in duplicate on three separate occasions.
Dansyl-polymyxin B binding studies.
CPS suspensions (final concentration 10 µg ml–1) were prepared in 5 mM HEPES (pH 7.5) and 1 ml of this suspension was transferred to a 1 cm fluorimetric cuvette to which dansyl-polymyxin B (final concentration 0.5 µM) was added. Fluorescence spectra of dansyl-polymyxin B were recorded at room temperature from 400 to 600 nm at an excitation wavelength of 340 nm with a spectrofluorophotomoter (RF-5301PC Shimadzu). The slit width was 3 nm. Results were expressed as arbitrary units of fluorescence. Measurements were recorded as ASCII files and exported to a personal computer for plotting. All measurements were done in duplicate on three separate occasions.
Statistical methods.
Statistical analyses were performed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) or the two-sample t test or, when the requirements were not met, by the Mann–Whitney U test. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. These analyses were performed using Prism4 for PC (GraphPad Software).
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RESULTS |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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). We and others have used polymyxin B as a model AP since resistance to this agent reflects well the resistance to mammalian APs and correlates with virulence (Groisman, 1994; Gutsmann et al., 2005; Nizet, 2006; Wiese et al., 2003). Survival assays, shown in Fig. 1, demonstrated that purified CPS from wild-type K. pneumoniae strain 52145 increased the resistance to polymyxin B of strain 52145-wcaK2 3-fold (IC50 1 µg ml–1 vs 3 µg ml–1). We sought to determine whether CPSs from other pathogens also increase the resistance to APs of the mutant. Either CPS from a S. pneumoniae serotype 3 strain or CPS from P. aeruginosa, also known as alginate, increased the resistance of 52145-wcaK2 to polymyxin B (Fig. 1) (IC50 values also increased 3-fold).
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-defensin-1 (HNP-1) for three unencapsulated strains, namely K. pneumoniae 52145-wcaK2, E. coli C600 and P. aeruginosa PAO1, in the presence or absence of CPSs (Table 1). CPS from K. pneumoniae increased the MICs of polymyxin B and HNP-1 for the three bacterial species (Table 1). The effect was more dramatic for HNP-1 than for polymyxin B (Table 1). Similar experiments were conducted using CPSs from S. pneumoniae serotype 3 and P. aeruginosa PAOMA. Both polysaccharides also increased the MICs of polymyxin B and HNP-1 for the three bacterial species tested (Table 1).
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APs release CPS from the bacterial surface
Considering that K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa will encounter APs in vivo, we asked whether APs may release CPS from the bacterial surface which, in turn, might increase the resistance to APs. For this set of experiments we used wild-type K. pneumoniae strain 52145, wild-type S. pneumoniae strain M24LS (Arrecubieta et al., 1994) and P. aeruginosa PAOMA mutant. The results demonstrated that in the absence of APs, all three strains released CPS to the medium (Table 2). The amount of CPS released was increased upon incubation of the pathogens with either polymyxin B or HNP-1 (Table 2). HNP-1 at 1 µg ml–1 caused release of significantly more CPS than HNP-1 at 0.1 µg ml–1 (Table 2). Control experiments revealed that treatment with APs caused neither bacterial lysis nor viability loss (data not shown). It is of note that polymyxin B also released CPS from UV-killed bacteria (3 min exposition to 1 J; after this treatment no c.f.u. were recovered). The amount of CPS (in µg per 105 c.f.u.) released by polymyxin B from UV-killed K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa was 335, 1597 and 452 respectively. These amounts of CPSs were similar to those released by polymyxin B from live bacteria (Table 2).
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wcaK2, P. aeruginosa PAO1 and S. pneumoniae M24L. However, these materials did not change the MIC of polymyxin B to E. coli C600 (data not shown). Together these data demonstrate that APs release CPS from the surface of three different pathogens which, in turn, reduces the bactericidal activity of APs as shown by a 3-fold increase in the MIC. Naturally released CPS from the three pathogens also neutralize the bactericidal activity of APs.
CPSs bind APs
To explain how CPSs neutralize the bactericidal activity of APs, we hypothesized that CPSs might bind APs, thereby reducing the amount of peptides reaching the bacterial surface. This hypothesis was based on the fact that nearly all APs are cationic whereas the CPSs tested are anionic (Corsaro et al., 2005; Kamerling, 2000; Sherbrock-Cox et al., 1984) and hence an electrostatic interaction between them could be expected. To explore this, firstly we determined whether CPSs would bind polymyxin B and HNP-1. By using a bioassay, we showed that CPSs from K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae serotype 3 and P. aeruginosa bound polymyxin B (Fig. 2a) and HNP-1 (Fig. 2b). Secondly, we evaluated the binding of dansyl-polymyxin B to CPSs. This compound has been extensively used to study the binding of APs to polysaccharides, proteins and intact bacteria (Bengoechea et al., 1998; Campos et al., 2006; Moore et al., 1986). The dansylated peptide exhibits low fluorescent yield when diluted into aqueous buffer; however, the fluorescent yield increases, with the maximum fluorescence shifting to a lower wavelength, in a hydrophobic environment (Moore et al., 1986; Newton, 1955). Therefore there is a correlation between fluorescence and the amount of dansyl-polymyxin B bound (Bengoechea et al., 1998; Campos et al., 2006; Moore et al., 1986). The results shown in Fig. 2(c–e) demonstrate that dansyl-polymyxin B bound to CPSs from K. pneumoniae (Fig. 2c), S. pneumoniae serotype 3 (Fig. 2d) and P. aeruginosa (Fig. 2e). In all cases, unlabelled polymyxin B outcompeted dansyl-polymyxin B, showing that binding was specific and not due to non-specific features of the dansyl group (data not shown).
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) would bind dansyl-polymyxin B. The results shown in Fig. 3 demonstrate that these CPSs did not bind dansyl-polymyxin B, because there was no change in the fluorescence yield. Due to the lack of binding of APs to both CPSs we hypothesized that these CPSs would not change the MIC of APs for a sensitive strain such as E. coli C600. Indeed, the MIC of polymyxin B for E. coli C600 in the absence of CPSs (0.9±0.3 µg ml–1) was not significantly different (P>0.05) from those in the presence of 10 µg ml–1 of either CPS from serotype 1 (1.1±0.3 µg ml–1) or CPS from serotype 33F (1.2±0.6 µg ml–1).
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indicate that indeed DEAE-dextran significantly reduced the binding of polymyxin B (Fig. 4a) and HNP-1 (Fig. 4b) to the three CPSs. To rule out specific features of DEAE-dextran, we tested whether the polycation chitosan would behave as DEAE-dextran. Chitosan also reduced the binding of polymyxin B and HNP-1 to the polysaccharides (Fig. 4a, b).
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wcaK2 in the presence of CPSs from K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae serotype 3 and P. aeruginosa (Table 3). Both polycations also abrogated the CPS-dependent MIC increase of polymyxin B and HNP-1 for E. coli C600 and P. aeruginosa PAO1 (Table 3). The MICs of either DEAE-dextran or chitosan for 52145-wcaK2, E. coli C600 and P. aeruginosa PAO1 were higher than 500 µg ml–1. In addition, there was no synergy between polycations and APs because the MICs of polymyxin B and HNP-1 to 52145-wcaK2, C600 or PAO1 in the presence or absence of either DEAE-dextran or chitosan were not significantly different (Table 3).
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DISCUSSION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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). These are molecules expressed by different viruses and parasites which act as molecular traps for the chemokines to prevent cell activation (Mantovani et al., 2006). Therefore, taking into account the findings reported here, we would like to put forward the concept that anionic CPSs could be considered bacterial decoys for APs. Supporting the notion that this could be a general theme for pathogens expressing anionic CPSs, in this work we have shown that CPSs from three different pathogens, K. pneumoniae, S. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa, acted in the same manner.
The best-characterized bacterial strategies of resistance to APs are based on the alteration of cell surface charge by, for example, addition of aminoarabinose to LPS lipid A moiety or D-alanylation of surface-exposed lipoteichoic acids (Nizet, 2006; Peschel, 2002). However, given the cationic nature of APs, another way to neutralize them could be the exploitation of negatively charged molecules. To the best of our knowledge, free anionic CPSs are the first bacterial molecules shown to be examples of this strategy.
What is the relative impact of this mechanism of resistance to APs in comparison to others published in the literature? In the present study, we have shown that CPSs increased the IC50 values of polymyxin B for an unencapsulated mutant of K. pneumoniae 3-fold (Fig. 1
). For P. aeruginosa and Salmonalla typhimurium, there are studies showing increases of the IC50 of polymyxin B of 6 and 10-fold respectively (Gunn & Miller, 1996; Moskowitz et al., 2004). However, it is worth noting that the Pseudomonas and Salmonella strains used in those studies are not wild-type strains but mutants overexpressing several loci involved in AP resistance.
On the other hand, it has been estimated that the extracellular concentration of HNP-1 after neutrophil degranulation is in the 1–10 µg ml–1 range (Ganz, 1987; Selsted & Ouellette, 1995) which is close to the MIC for K. pneumoniae, E. coli and P. aeruginosa (see Table 1 and Takemura et al., 1996). Our results demonstrate that CPSs increased the MIC of HNP-1 for the three bacterial species at least 5-fold (up to 50 µg ml–1; see Table 1). To the best of our knowledge, there is no report of a bacterial system increasing the MIC of HNP-1 for a sensitive strain to such an extent.
An important question is whether in vivo there would be enough free CPS to neutralize the bactericidal action of APs. Evidence suggests that in vivo there is CPS that is not bound to the bacterial surface in the case of K. pneumoniae and S. pneumoniae (Hardy et al., 2000; Steinmoen et al., 2002, 2003; Straus et al., 1985; Ventura et al., 2006). A prominent feature of P. aeruginosa isolated from patients with chronic lung infections is the conversion to alginate-overproducing strains (Poschet et al., 2001). Furthermore, alginate is detected in the sputum of patients and also in the lungs of infected mice (Bragonzi et al., 2005). Although it is difficult to estimate the number of bacteria in the lungs of infected patients with either Klebsiella, Streptococcus or Pseudomonas, perusal of the clinical guidelines indicates that in those patients diagnosed with pneumonia at least 104 c.f.u. per ml of bronchoalveolar lavage can be obtained. According to the data shown in Table 2, it is likely that 104 c.f.u. will release enough CPS to achieve protection against APs. Nevertheless, we have shown that even a sublethal concentration of HNP-1 released CPS from the bacterial surface. We postulate that APs may trigger in vivo the release of material which in turn will protect bacteria against APs. In fact, it is reported that activated neutrophils may release at least 1 µg ml–1 of HNP-1 (Ganz, 1987; Selsted & Ouellette, 1995), indicating that in vivo there would be enough AP to release a significant amount of CPS. Mechanistically, it is well known that APs release LPS from the surface by removing stabilizing divalent cations from their LPS-binding sites (Vaara, 1992). Likewise we speculate that APs would release CPS from the surface by disturbing cation-dependent ionic bridges between adjacent molecules of CPS. Interestingly, it has been shown that CPS from K. pneumoniae is associated with the cell surface by an ionic interaction between CPS and the LPS core region (Fresno et al., 2006). This interaction is stabilized by divalent cations (Fresno et al., 2006). In this context, it is not surprising that polymyxin B released more CPS from the bacterial surface than HNP-1 (Table 2) because polymyxin B is considered the most potent AP disturbing cation-dependent ionic bridges between LPS molecules (Vaara, 1992).
We and others have suggested that surface-bound CPS may act as a protective shield on the bacterial surface against APs (Campos et al., 2004; Spinosa et al., 2007). In this study, we demonstrate that the decoy action of CPSs contributes significantly to the resistance against APs for pathogens expressing anionic CPSs. The protective action of CPS will also allow the pathogen to activate other countermeasures against APs such as alteration of surface charge, which is a time-consuming process. This is of relevance because, as discussed before, the concentrations of defensins present in tissues are close to the MIC for several bacteria.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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Edited by: M. P. Stevens
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Received 24 July 2008;
revised 15 September 2008;
accepted 17 September 2008.
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) or presence of 10 µg ml–1 of CPSs from K. pneumoniae (
), S. pneumoniae (
) or P. aeruginosa (
). Each point represents the mean and standard deviation (not shown where smaller than symbol) of eight samples from four independently grown batches of bacteria; significant survival differences (P<0.05) between bacteria incubated with and without CPSs are indicated by asterisks.
) and P. aeruginosa (
). Each point in panels (a) and (b) represents the mean and standard deviation of six samples from three independent experiments. (c–e) Binding of dansyl-polymyxin B to CPS from K. pneumoniae (c), S. pneumoniae (d) and P. aeruginosa (e). In panels (c)–(e) the dashed line shows the fluorescence of CPS alone, the grey line shows the fluorescence of 0.5 µM dansyl-polymyxin B and the black line shows the fluorescence of 0.5 µM dansyl-polymyxin B in the presence of CPS. The data in panels (c)–(e) are representative of three separate independent experiments (coefficient of variation was less than 5 %).
