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Johansen MD, Spaink HP, Oehlers SH, Kremer L. Modeling nontuberculous mycobacterial infections in zebrafish. Trends Microbiol 2024; 32:663-677. [PMID: 38135617 DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2023.11.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2023] [Revised: 11/24/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
The incidence of infections due to nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) has increased rapidly in recent years, surpassing tuberculosis in developed countries. Due to inherent antimicrobial resistance, NTM infections are particularly difficult to treat with low cure rates. There is an urgent need to understand NTM pathogenesis and to develop novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of NTM diseases. Zebrafish have emerged as an excellent animal model due to genetic amenability and optical transparency during embryonic development, allowing spatiotemporal visualization of host-pathogen interactions. Furthermore, adult zebrafish possess fully functional innate and adaptive immunity and recapitulate important pathophysiological hallmarks of mycobacterial infection. Here, we report recent breakthroughs in understanding the hallmarks of NTM infections using the zebrafish model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matt D Johansen
- Centre for Inflammation, Centenary Institute and University of Technology Sydney, Faculty of Science, School of Life Sciences, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Herman P Spaink
- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Stefan H Oehlers
- A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs (A*STAR ID Labs), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore
| | - Laurent Kremer
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 9004, Institut de Recherche en Infectiologie de Montpellier (IRIM), Université de Montpellier, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier, France; INSERM, IRIM, 34293 Montpellier, France.
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2
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Lagune M, Kremer L, Herrmann JL. Mycobacterium abscessus, a complex of three fast-growing subspecies sharing virulence traits with slow-growing mycobacteria. Clin Microbiol Infect 2024; 30:726-731. [PMID: 37797823 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2023.08.036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 08/28/2023] [Accepted: 08/31/2023] [Indexed: 10/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Mycobacterium abscessus belongs to the largest group of mycobacteria, the rapid-growing saprophytic mycobacteria, and is one of the most difficult-to-treat opportunistic pathogen. Several features pertain to the high adaptability of M. abscessus to the host. These include the capacity to survive and persist within amoebae, to transition from a smooth to a rough morphotype that occurs during the course of the disease and to express of a wide array of virulence factors. OBJECTIVES The main objective of this narrative review consists to report major assets of M. abscessus that contribute to the virulence of these rapid-growing saprophytic mycobacteria. Strikingly, many of these determinants, whether they are from a mycobacterial origin or acquired by horizontal gene transfer, are known virulence factors found in slow-growing and strict pathogens for humans and animals. SOURCES In the light of recent published work in the field we attempted to highlight major features characterizing M. abscessus pathogenicity and to explain why this led to the emergence of this mycobacterial species in patients with cystic fibrosis. CONTENT M. abscessus genome plasticity, the smooth-to-rough transition, and the expression of a panel of enzymes associated with virulence in other bacteria are key players in M. abscessus virulence. In addition, the very large repertoire of lipid transporters, known as mycobacterial membrane protein large and small (MmpL and MmpS respectively), deeply influences the pathogenicity of M. abscessus, as exemplified here for some of them. IMPLICATIONS All these traits largely contribute to make M. abscessus a unique mycobacterium regarding to its pathophysiological processes, ranging from the early colonization steps to the establishment of severe and chronic pulmonary diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marion Lagune
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Laurent Kremer
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR 9004, Institut de Recherche en Infectiologie de Montpellier (IRIM), Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France; INSERM, IRIM, Montpellier, France
| | - Jean-Louis Herrmann
- Université Paris-Saclay, UVSQ, INSERM, U1173 Infection et Inflammation, Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France; Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpitaux Universitaires Ile-de-France Ouest, GHU Paris-Saclay, Hôpital Raymond Poincaré, Garches, France.
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Orgeur M, Sous C, Madacki J, Brosch R. Evolution and emergence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. FEMS Microbiol Rev 2024; 48:fuae006. [PMID: 38365982 PMCID: PMC10906988 DOI: 10.1093/femsre/fuae006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Revised: 01/12/2024] [Accepted: 02/13/2024] [Indexed: 02/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in human history, prevailing even in the 21st century. The causative agents of TB are represented by a group of closely related bacteria belonging to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), which can be subdivided into several lineages of human- and animal-adapted strains, thought to have shared a last common ancestor emerged by clonal expansion from a pool of recombinogenic Mycobacterium canettii-like tubercle bacilli. A better understanding of how MTBC populations evolved from less virulent mycobacteria may allow for discovering improved TB control strategies and future epidemiologic trends. In this review, we highlight new insights into the evolution of mycobacteria at the genus level, describing different milestones in the evolution of mycobacteria, with a focus on the genomic events that have likely enabled the emergence and the dominance of the MTBC. We also review the recent literature describing the various MTBC lineages and highlight their particularities and differences with a focus on host preferences and geographic distribution. Finally, we discuss on putative mechanisms driving the evolution of tubercle bacilli and mycobacteria in general, by taking the mycobacteria-specific distributive conjugal transfer as an example.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mickael Orgeur
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 6047, Unit for Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics, 75015 Paris, France
| | - Camille Sous
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 6047, Unit for Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics, 75015 Paris, France
| | - Jan Madacki
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 6047, Unit for Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics, 75015 Paris, France
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 2000, Unit for Human Evolutionary Genetics, 75015 Paris, France
| | - Roland Brosch
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 6047, Unit for Integrated Mycobacterial Pathogenomics, 75015 Paris, France
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Bar-Oz M, Martini MC, Alonso MN, Meir M, Lore NI, Miotto P, Riva C, Angala SK, Xiao J, Masiello CS, Misiakou MA, Sun H, Moy JK, Jackson M, Johansen HK, Cirillo DM, Shell SS, Barkan D. The small non-coding RNA B11 regulates multiple facets of Mycobacterium abscessus virulence. PLoS Pathog 2023; 19:e1011575. [PMID: 37603560 PMCID: PMC10470900 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 08/31/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 08/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Mycobacterium abscessus causes severe disease in patients with cystic fibrosis. Little is known in M. abscessus about the roles of small regulatory RNAs (sRNA) in gene regulation. We show that the sRNA B11 controls gene expression and virulence-associated phenotypes in this pathogen. B11 deletion from the smooth strain ATCC_19977 produced a rough strain, increased pro-inflammatory signaling and virulence in multiple infection models, and increased resistance to antibiotics. Examination of clinical isolate cohorts identified isolates with B11 mutations or reduced expression. We used RNAseq and proteomics to investigate the effects of B11 on gene expression and test the impact of mutations found in clinical isolates. Over 200 genes were differentially expressed in the deletion mutant. Strains with the clinical B11 mutations showed expression trends similar to the deletion mutant, suggesting partial loss of function. Among genes upregulated in the B11 mutant, there was a strong enrichment for genes with B11-complementary sequences in their predicted ribosome binding sites (RBS), consistent with B11 functioning as a negative regulator that represses translation via base-pairing to RBSs. Comparing the proteomes similarly revealed that upregulated proteins were strongly enriched for B11-complementary sequences. Intriguingly, genes upregulated in the absence of B11 included components of the ESX-4 secretion system, critical for M. abscessus virulence. Many of these genes had B11-complementary sequences at their RBSs, which we show is sufficient to mediate repression by B11 through direct binding. Altogether, our data show that B11 acts as a direct negative regulator and mediates (likely indirect) positive regulation with pleiotropic effects on gene expression and clinically important phenotypes in M. abscessus. The presence of hypomorphic B11 mutations in clinical strains is consistent with the idea that lower B11 activity may be advantageous for M. abscessus in some clinical contexts. This is the first report on an sRNA role in M. abscessus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michal Bar-Oz
- Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Maria Carla Martini
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Maria Natalia Alonso
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | | | | | - Paolo Miotto
- IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Camilla Riva
- IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Shiva K Angala
- Mycobacteria Research Laboratories, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
| | - Junpei Xiao
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Catherine S Masiello
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Maria-Anna Misiakou
- Center for Genomic Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital-Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Huaming Sun
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Justin K Moy
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Mary Jackson
- Mycobacteria Research Laboratories, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
| | | | | | - Scarlet S Shell
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Daniel Barkan
- Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
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Famelis N, Geibel S, van Tol D. Mycobacterial type VII secretion systems. Biol Chem 2023; 0:hsz-2022-0350. [PMID: 37276364 DOI: 10.1515/hsz-2022-0350] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2022] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Mycobacteria, such as the pathogen M. tuberculosis, utilize up to five paralogous type VII secretion systems to transport proteins across their cell envelope. Since these proteins associate in pairs that depend on each other for transport to a different extent, the secretion pathway to the bacterial surface remained challenging to address. Structural characterization of the inner-membrane embedded secretion machineries along with recent advances on the substrates' co-dependencies for transport allow for the first time more detailed and testable models for secretion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikolaos Famelis
- Institute for Molecular Infection Biology, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, D-97080 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Sebastian Geibel
- Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, NL-2333 CC Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Daan van Tol
- Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, NL-2333 CC Leiden, Netherlands
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Parmar S, Tocheva EI. The cell envelope of Mycobacterium abscessus and its role in pathogenesis. PLoS Pathog 2023; 19:e1011318. [PMID: 37200238 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011318] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Mycobacterium abscessus is a nontuberculosis mycobacterium (NTM) that has shown an exponential rise in its ability to cause disease. Due to its ubiquitous presence in the environment, M. abscessus is widely implicated in secondary exacerbations of many nosocomial infections and genetic respiratory disorders, such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Contrary to other rapidly growing NTMs, the cell envelope of M. abscessus harbors several prominent features and undergoes modifications that are responsible for its pathogenesis. Compositional changes of the mycobacterial outer membrane (MOM) significantly decrease the presence of glycopeptidolipids (GPLs) and enable the transition from a colonizing, smooth morphotype into a virulent, rough morphotype. The GPLs are transported to the MOM by the Mycobacterial membrane proteins Large (MmpL), which further act as drug efflux pumps and confer antibiotic resistance. Lastly, M. abscessus possesses 2 type VII secretion systems (T7SS): ESX-3 and ESX-4, both of which have recently been implicated in host-pathogen interactions and virulence. This review summarizes the current knowledge of M. abscessus pathogenesis and highlights the clinically relevant association between the structure and functions of its cell envelope.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shweta Parmar
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Elitza I Tocheva
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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Sankey N, Merrick H, Singh P, Rogers J, Reddi A, Hartson SD, Mitra A. Role of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis ESX-4 Secretion System in Heme Iron Utilization and Pore Formation by PPE Proteins. mSphere 2023; 8:e0057322. [PMID: 36749044 PMCID: PMC10117145 DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00573-22] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Accepted: 01/16/2023] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is transmitted through aerosols and primarily colonizes within the lung. The World Health Organization estimates that Mtb kills ~1.4 million people every year. A key aspect that makes Mtb such a successful pathogen is its ability to overcome iron limitation mounted by the host immune response. In our previous studies, we have shown that Mtb can utilize iron from heme, the largest source of iron in the human host, and that it uses two redundant heme utilization pathways. In this study, we show that the ESX-4 type VII secretion system (T7SS) is necessary for extracellular heme uptake into the Mtb cell through both heme utilization pathways. ESX-4 influences the secretion of the culture filtrate proteins Rv0125 and Rv1085c, which are also necessary for efficient heme utilization. We also discovered that deletion of the alternative sigma factor SigM significantly reduced Mtb heme utilization through both pathways and predict that SigM is a global positive regulator of core heme utilization genes of both pathways. Finally, we present the first direct evidence that some mycobacterial PPE (proline-proline-glutamate motif) proteins of the PPE protein family are pore-forming membrane proteins. Altogether, we identified core components of both Mtb Heme utilization pathways that were previously unknown and identified a novel channel-forming membrane protein of Mtb. IMPORTANCE M. tuberculosis (Mtb) is completely dependent on iron acquisition in the host to cause disease. The largest source of iron for Mtb in the human host is heme. Here, we show that the ancestral ESX-4 type VII secretion system is required for the efficient utilization of heme as a source of iron, which is an essential nutrient. This is another biological function identified for ESX-4 in Mtb, whose contribution to Mtb physiology is poorly understood. A most exciting finding is that some mycobacterial PPE (proline-proline-glutamate motif) proteins that have been implicated in the nutrient acquisition are membrane proteins that can form channels in a lipid bilayer. These observations have far-reaching implications because they support an emerging theme that PPE proteins can function as channel proteins in the outer mycomembrane for nutrient acquisition. Mtb has evolved a heme uptake system that is drastically different from all other known bacterial heme acquisition systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- November Sankey
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Haley Merrick
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Padam Singh
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Janet Rogers
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Amit Reddi
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Parker Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Steven D. Hartson
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Avishek Mitra
- Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
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