Uropathogenic Escherichia coli employs both evasion and resistance to subvert innate immune-mediated zinc toxicity for dissemination.

ABSTRACT: Toll-like receptor (TLR)-inducible zinc toxicity is a recently described macrophage antimicrobial response used against bacterial pathogens. Here we investigated deployment of this pathway against uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), the major cause of urinary tract infections. Primary human macrophages subjected EC958, a representative strain of the globally disseminated multidrug-resistant UPEC ST131 clone, to zinc stress. We therefore used transposon-directed insertion site sequencing to identify the complete set of UPEC genes conferring protection against zinc toxicity. Surprisingly, zinc-susceptible EC958 mutants were not compromised for intramacrophage survival, whereas corresponding mutants in the nonpathogenic E. coli K-12 strain MG1655 displayed significantly reduc

SUBMITTER: Stocks CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6442554 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature