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Santos JC, Handa S, Fernandes LGV, Bleicher L, Gandin CA, de Oliveira-Neto M, Ghosh P, Nascimento ALTO. Structural and biochemical characterization of Leptospira interrogans Lsa45 reveals a penicillin-binding protein with esterase activity. Process Biochem 2023; 125:141-153. [PMID: 36643388 PMCID: PMC9836055 DOI: 10.1016/j.procbio.2022.12.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that affects humans and animals and is caused by Leptospira. The recommended treatment for leptospirosis is antibiotic therapy, which should be given early in the course of the disease. Despite the use of these antibiotics, their role during the course of the disease is still not completely clear because of the lack of effective clinical trials, particularly for severe cases of the disease. Here, we present the characterization of L. interrogans Lsa45 protein by gel filtration, protein crystallography, SAXS, fluorescence and enzymatic assays. The oligomeric studies revealed that Lsa45 is monomeric in solution. The crystal structure of Lsa45 revealed the presence of two subdomains: a large α/β subdomain and a small α-helical subdomain. The large subdomain contains the amino acids Ser122, Lys125, and Tyr217, which correspond to the catalytic triad that is essential for β-lactamase or serine hydrolase activity in similar enzymes. Additionally, we also confirmed the bifunctional promiscuity of Lsa45, in hydrolyzing both the 4-nitrophenyl acetate (p-NPA) and nitrocefin β-lactam antibiotic. Therefore, this study provides novel insights into the structure and function of enzymes from L. interrogans, which furthers our understanding of this bacterium and the development of new therapies for the prevention and treatment of leptospirosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jademilson C. Santos
- Laboratório de Desenvolvimento de Vacinas, Instituto Butantan, Avenida Vital Brasil, 1500, 05503-900, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
- Instituto Federal da Bahia – IFBA - Rodovia BR-367, R. José Fontana, 1, 45810-000, Porto Seguro - BA, Brazil
| | - Sumit Handa
- Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093, USA
| | - Luis G. V. Fernandes
- Laboratório de Desenvolvimento de Vacinas, Instituto Butantan, Avenida Vital Brasil, 1500, 05503-900, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Lucas Bleicher
- Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
| | - César A. Gandin
- Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Instituto de Biociências, Dep. de Física e Biofísica, Botucatu, SP, Brazil
| | - Mario de Oliveira-Neto
- Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Instituto de Biociências, Dep. de Física e Biofísica, Botucatu, SP, Brazil
| | - Partho Ghosh
- Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093, USA
| | - Ana Lucia T. O. Nascimento
- Laboratório de Desenvolvimento de Vacinas, Instituto Butantan, Avenida Vital Brasil, 1500, 05503-900, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
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Shetty A, Kundu S, Vernel-Pauillac F, Ratet G, Werts C, Gomes-Solecki M. Transient Presence of Live Leptospira interrogans in Murine Testes. Microbiol Spectr 2022; 10:e0277521. [PMID: 35446113 PMCID: PMC9241917 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02775-21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2022] [Accepted: 03/25/2022] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Analysis of Leptospira dissemination and colonization of sex organs in rodents is of significant value as it queries the possibility of mammal-to-mammal venereal transmission. The aim of our study was to evaluate the presence and viability of Leptospira interrogans in testes of mice using models of infection that we previously developed. Using sublethal and lethal doses of bioluminescent strains of L. interrogans serovars Manilae and Copenhageni, we visualized the presence of leptospires in testes of C57BL/6 mice as early as 30 min and up to days 3-4 postinfection. This was confirmed by qPCR for the Copenhageni serovar after lethal infection of C3H/HeJ mice. In this model, no histopathological changes were noticed in testis. We further studied persistence of serovar Copenhageni in C3H/HeJ testes after lethal and sublethal infection, with different doses of leptospires. No viable leptospires were recovered from testes of lethally infected mice. However, we found live culturable Leptospira in testes of 19/19 (100%) sublethally infected mice at the acute phase but not at 15 days postinfection, which corresponds to the chronic phase of renal colonization. The data suggest that colonization of testes with live and potentially infectious leptospires is transient and limited to the spirochetemic phase of infection. Further studies are necessary to evaluate if presence of Leptospira in testes of mice leads to excretion in semen and to venereal transmission to female mice. IMPORTANCE Analysis of venereal transmission of Leptospira is important to determine if direct animal to animal transmission occurs, which could impact measures to prevent and treat leptospirosis. The goal of this study was to determine if live Leptospira colonize mouse testes. We found that colonization of mouse testes with live Leptospira was transient and limited to the acute spirochetemic phase of infection and that transient colonization of the testes was insufficient to cause histopathological changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Advait Shetty
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
| | - Suman Kundu
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
| | - Frédérique Vernel-Pauillac
- Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR6047, INSERM U1306, Unité de Biologie et Génétique de la paroi bactérienne, Paris, France
| | - Gwendoline Ratet
- Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR6047, INSERM U1306, Unité de Biologie et Génétique de la paroi bactérienne, Paris, France
| | - Catherine Werts
- Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR6047, INSERM U1306, Unité de Biologie et Génétique de la paroi bactérienne, Paris, France
| | - Maria Gomes-Solecki
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
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Kundu S, Shetty A, Gomes-Solecki M. Necroptosis Contributes to Persistent Inflammation During Acute Leptospirosis. Front Immunol 2022; 13:810834. [PMID: 35392072 PMCID: PMC8980737 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.810834] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Leptospirosis is an emerging infectious disease. Recently, canine and human leptospirosis outbreaks were reported in California and New York, respectively. In this study we evaluated the role that cell death processes play in the inflammatory response to Leptospira. Groups of male C3H/HeJ mice were infected with pathogenic L. interrogans and non-pathogenic L. biflexa for 24 and 72 hours; inflammatory processes were characterized for apoptosis and necroptosis by flowcytometry of spleen cells and were further assessed for expression of biomarkers of necroptosis by western blot. We found that pathogenic L. interrogans promotes apoptosis in myeloid neutrophils and monocytes at 24h and 72h post-infection, whereas L. biflexa promotes apoptosis of myeloid monocytes only at 24h post-infection. It is interesting that the immune cells undergoing the common programmed cell death pathway (apoptosis) are the cell types which were not increased in frequency in spleen of mice infected with L. interrogans (neutrophils) and L. biflexa (monocytes) in our previous study. The same trend was observed with pathogenic L. interrogans inducing necroptosis of myeloid neutrophils in addition to monocytes and macrophages at 24h and/or 72h post-infection, whereas L. biflexa promoted this pro-inflammatory cell death process in monocytes and macrophages only at 24h post-infection. Thus, early apoptosis and necroptosis of these cell types may explain its absence in frequency in spleen. Furthermore, at 24h and 72h, expression of the necroptosis molecular biomarkers p-MLKL, p-RIP1 and p-RIP3 was increased post infection with pathogenic L. interrogans. These data suggest that the underlying cell death processes involved in immune responses to pathogenic Leptospira contribute directly to persistent inflammation during the early stages of leptospirosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suman Kundu
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States
| | - Advait Shetty
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States
| | - Maria Gomes-Solecki
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States,Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States,*Correspondence: Maria Gomes-Solecki,
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Schmidt E, Obiegala A, Imholt C, Drewes S, Saathoff M, Freise J, Runge M, Jacob J, Mayer-Scholl A, Ulrich RG, Pfeffer M. Influence of Season, Population and Individual Characteristics on the Prevalence of Leptospira spp. in Bank Voles in North-West Germany. Biology (Basel) 2021; 10:933. [PMID: 34571810 DOI: 10.3390/biology10090933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Revised: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 09/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Simple Summary Leptospirosis is a worldwide emerging zoonotic disease. Clinical symptoms in humans range from mild flu-like symptoms to severe clinical disease with kidney failure and multiple organ dysfunction. Infections occur after contact with infected animals or through water and soil contaminated by urine of infected animals. Cases are mostly linked to occupational risk groups such as field workers or farmers, but contact with pets and recreational activities like fresh water sports also lead to a higher exposure risk. This study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence and species distribution of Leptospira in bank voles in Germany. We analyzed the DNA of 1817 kidney samples and detected a mean prevalence of 7.5% with the following pathogenic Leptospira species: L. interrogans, L. kirschneri, and L. borgpetersenii. The individual infection risk in bank voles depended on season, body weight and abundance of bank voles. Even if leptospirosis case numbers in Germany are low, our study shows that pathogenic Leptospira spp. are present and a potential source for human infection, which should be recognized by clinicians and veterinarians. Abstract Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonotic disease with more than 1 million human cases annually. Infections are associated with direct contact to infected animals or indirect contact to contaminated water or soil. As not much is known about the prevalence and host specificity of Leptospira spp. in bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus), our study aimed to evaluate Leptospira spp. prevalence and genomospecies distribution as well as the influence of season, host abundance and individual characteristics on the Leptospira prevalence. Bank voles, which are abundant and widely distributed in forest habitats, were collected in the years 2018 to 2020 in North-West Germany, covering parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. The DNA of 1817 kidney samples was analyzed by real-time PCR targeting the lipl32 gene. Positive samples were further analyzed by targeting the secY gene to determine Leptospira genomospecies and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to determine the sequence type (ST). The overall prevalence was 7.5% (95% confidence interval: 6.4–8.9). Leptospira interrogans (83.3%), L. kirschneri (11.5%) and L. borgpetersenii (5.2%) were detected in bank voles. Increasing body weight as a proxy for age increased the individual infection probability. Only in years with high bank vole abundance was this probability significantly higher in males than in females. Even if case numbers of human leptospirosis in Germany are low, our study shows that pathogenic Leptospira spp. are present and thus a persisting potential source for human infection.
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Shetty A, Kundu S, Gomes-Solecki M. Inflammatory Signatures of Pathogenic and Non-Pathogenic Leptospira Infection in Susceptible C3H-HeJ Mice. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2021; 11:677999. [PMID: 34249775 PMCID: PMC8264587 DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.677999] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The exact global impact of leptospirosis is unknown due to inadequate surveillance systems in place in most low-income countries. In this study, we analyzed the differences in mouse inflammatory signatures involved in pathogenic versus non-pathogenic Leptospira recognition at 24h and 72h post infection. Injection of C3H-HeJ mice with non-pathogenic L. biflexa increased circulation of a few chemokines (5/21, 24%) without secretion of cytokines in blood that resulted in engagement of resident macrophages, dendritic cells, neutrophils and NK cells without engagement of T cells. In contrast, pathogenic L. interrogans induced circulation of a much higher panel of chemokines (18/21, 86%) and pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines (11/19, 58%) in blood with a resulting signaling cascade leading to engagement of macrophages, dendritic cells, monocytes, NK cells and T cells without engagement of neutrophils. Although neutrophils do not appear to be engaged, a considerable number of chemokines that recruit other granulocytes such as eosinophils and basophils were also increased at 72h post infection with L. interrogans. Overall, the data suggest that prevention of dissemination of L. biflexa is associated with an early engagement of the innate immune response characterized by upregulation of a few chemokines that results in an efficacious phagocytic response without an overwhelming increase of pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, when macrophages fail to clear a pathogenic serovar such as L. interrogans, the adaptive response (T cells) is engaged to help out, but the resulting chemo-cytokine storm mediates a robust but non-resolving inflammatory response to pathogenic Leptospira that results in dissemination, kidney colonization, pathology and disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Advait Shetty
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States
| | - Suman Kundu
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States
| | - Maria Gomes-Solecki
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States,Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States,*Correspondence: Maria Gomes-Solecki,
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Azhari NN, Ramli SNA, Joseph N, Philip N, Mustapha NF, Ishak SN, Mohd-Taib FS, Md Nor S, Yusof MA, Mohd Sah SA, Mohd Desa MNB, Bashiru G, Zeppelini CG, Costa F, Sekawi Z, Neela VK. Molecular characterization of pathogenic Leptospira sp. in small mammals captured from the human leptospirosis suspected areas of Selangor state, Malaysia. Acta Trop 2018; 188:68-77. [PMID: 30145261 DOI: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2018.08.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2018] [Revised: 08/17/2018] [Accepted: 08/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Leptospirosis is caused by the spirochetal bacterium Leptospira of which rodents are considered the most important reservoir. This study aims to determine and characterize virulent Leptospira species among rodents and small mammals found in human settlements and recreational spots within the Hulu Langat and Gombak districts of Selangor, Malaysia; regions that frequently report probable human leptospirosis cases. Molecular analysis revealed an overall Leptospira detection rate of 14.3% among the 266 small mammals captured, and the human settlements were found to have the highest number of isolates (15.1%), followed by recreational sites (14.5%). The molecular characterization conducted based on the lipL32, secY genes and MLST revealed that the strains belonged to four different species, including; Leptospira interrogans (29; 76.3%; ST50, ST238, ST243), L. kirschneri (5; 13.15%; ST110), L. borgpetersenii (3; 8%; ST143) and L. weilii (1; 2.63%; ST242). The study revealed genotypes of circulating strains among small mammals in Malaysia, which include Leptospira locus ST110 L. kirschneri, ST 50 L. interrogans, ST143 L. borgpetersenii and ST242 L. weilii. Among the small mammals studied, 17/105 (16.2%) Rattus norvegicus, 7/59 (11.9%) of Rattus rattus, 5/24 (20.8%) of Maxomys whiteheadi, 4/18 (22.2%) of Sundamys muelleri, 2/22 (9%), Tupaia gliss, 2/16 (12.5%) Rattus tiomanicus and 1/4 (25%) of Suncus murinus carried pathogenic leptospires. The data from the present study may imply that, in addition to rodents, other small mammals also serve as maintenance hosts for Leptospira. Hence, much remains unknown about Leptospira maintenance hosts, and there is need for further investigation to ascertain the prevailing serovars of pathogenic Leptospira in Malaysia. This will assist in the development of efficient diagnostic assays with improved microscopic agglutination test (MAT) panels, and in the implementation of suitable prevention and control measures.
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Zeng L, Wang D, Hu N, Zhu Q, Chen K, Dong K, Zhang Y, Yao Y, Guo X, Chang YF, Zhu Y. A Novel Pan-Genome Reverse Vaccinology Approach Employing a Negative-Selection Strategy for Screening Surface-Exposed Antigens against leptospirosis. Front Microbiol 2017; 8:396. [PMID: 28352257 PMCID: PMC5348505 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.00396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2016] [Accepted: 02/27/2017] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Reverse vaccinology (RV) has been widely used for screening of surface-exposed proteins (PSEs) of important pathogens, including outer membrane proteins (OMPs), and extracellular proteins (ECPs) as potential vaccine candidates. In this study, we applied a novel RV negative strategy and a pan-genome analysis for screening of PSEs from 17 L. interrogans strains covering 11 predominately epidemic serovars and 17 multilocus typing (MLST) sequence types (STs) worldwide. Our results showed, for instance, out of a total of 633 predicted PSEs in strain 56601, 92.8% were OMPs or ECPs (588/633). Among the 17 strains, 190 core PSEs, 913 dispensable PSEs and 861 unique PSEs were identified. Of the 190 PSEs, 121 were further predicted to be highly antigenic and thus may serve as potential vaccine candidates against leptospirosis. With the exception of LipL45, OmpL1, and LigB, the majority of the 121 PSEs were newly identified antigens. For example, hypothetical proteins BatC, LipL71, and the OmpA family proteins sharing many common features, such as surface-exposed localization, universal conservation, and eliciting strong antibody responses in patients, are regarded as the most promising vaccine antigens. Additionally, a wide array of potential virulence factors among the predicted PSEs including TonB-dependent receptor, sphingomyelinase 2, leucine-rich repeat protein, and 4 neighboring hypothetical proteins were identified as potential antigenicity, and deserve further investigation. Our results can contribute to the prediction of suitable antigens as potential vaccine candidates against leptospirosis and also provide further insights into mechanisms of leptospiral pathogenicity. In addition, our novel negative-screening strategy combined with pan-genome analysis can be a routine RV method applied to numerous other pathogens.
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Affiliation(s)
- LingBing Zeng
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of NanChang UniversityNanchang, China; Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of MedicineShanghai, China
| | - Dongliang Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology Beijing, China
| | - NiYa Hu
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of NanChang University Nanchang, China
| | - Qing Zhu
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of NanChang University Nanchang, China
| | - Kaishen Chen
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of NanChang University Nanchang, China
| | - Ke Dong
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai, China
| | - Yan Zhang
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai, China
| | - YuFeng Yao
- Deparment of Molecular Immunology, Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College Kunming, China
| | - XiaoKui Guo
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai, China
| | - Yung-Fu Chang
- Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - YongZhang Zhu
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai, China
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