Mycobacterium marinum Degrades Both Triacylglycerols and Phospholipids from Its Dictyostelium Host to Synthesise Its Own Triacylglycerols and Generate Lipid Inclusions.

ABSTRACT: During a tuberculosis infection and inside lipid-laden foamy macrophages, fatty acids (FAs) and sterols are the major energy and carbon source for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Mycobacteria can be found both inside a vacuole and the cytosol, but how this impacts their access to lipids is not well appreciated. Lipid droplets (LDs) store FAs in form of triacylglycerols (TAGs) and are energy reservoirs of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Using the Dictyostelium discoideum/Mycobacterium marinum infection model we showed that M. marinum accesses host LDs to build up its own intracytosolic lipid inclusions (ILIs). Here, we show that host LDs aggregate at regions of the bacteria that become exposed to the cytosol, and appear to coalesce on their hydrophobic surface leading to a transfer of diacylglycero

SUBMITTER: Barisch C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5245797 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature