Stenotrophomonas maltophilia encodes a type II protein secretion system that promotes detrimental effects on lung epithelial cells.

ABSTRACT: The Gram-negative bacterium Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is increasingly identified as a multidrug-resistant pathogen, being associated with pneumonia, among other infections. Despite this increasing clinical problem, the genetic and molecular basis of S. maltophilia virulence is quite minimally defined. We now report that strain K279a, the first clinical isolate of S. maltophilia to be sequenced, encodes a functional type II protein secretion (T2S) system. Indeed, mutants of K279a that contain a mutation in the xps locus exhibit a loss of at least seven secreted proteins and three proteolytic activities. Unlike culture supernatants from the parental K279a, supernatants from multiple xps mutants also failed to induce the rounding, detachment, and death of A549 cells, a human lung epithelia

SUBMITTER: Karaba SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3754218 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature