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The RNA-binding protein PNPase regulates biofilm formation and virulence in Listeria monocytogenes

ABSTRACT: Biofilm-related diseases are typically persistent infections, and a challenge for medical treatment. Biofilms are communities of bacteria that attach to surfaces and are enclosed in an extracellular matrix. These sessile microorganisms can endure external stresses like nutrient deprivation, antibiotic treatments, and immune defences. Therefore, biofilms create conditions favourable for bacterial pathogenesis. The knowledge of novel biofilm regulators may contribute to develop new strategies to fight microbial infections. In this work we study the role of the RNA-binding protein and RNA-degradative enzyme polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) from the human pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. We show that inactivation of Listeria PNPase not only leads to strong defects in biofilm production, but also affects biofilm morphology. RNA-seq analysis of the RNA extracted from biofilms of the wild-type and the PNPase mutant strains revealed major changes in the expression of genes affecting the metabolism of carbon. Lastly, infection assays in eukaryotic cell lines confirmed that PNPase deletion leads to the severe attenuation of Listeria monocytogenes pathogenicity. Overall, our results show that PNPase is a novel regulator of biofilm formation and human cellular invasion of a bacterial pathogen. This work presents PNPase as a new and attractive target for the control of bacterial infection and highlights the expanding role of RNA-binding proteins as critical players in pathogenicity.

ORGANISM(S): Listeria monocytogenes

PROVIDER: GSE210097 | GEO | 2023/06/05

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes has the ability to develop biofilm in food-processing environment, which becomes a major concern for the food safety. PrfA, a key transcriptional activator that regulates most of the known listerial virulence gene expression, has been shown to promote L. monocytogenes biofilm formation. In this study, the whole genome microarray was used to identify differentially expressed genes associated with the putative interaction between biofilm formation and PrfA in L. monocytogenes. Comparative transcriptome analyses indicated over 21.9% of the L. monocytogenes EGDe genes (627 out of 2857 predicted) were altered in their expression in biofilm cells relative to planktonic cell populations. These genes were classed into different functional categories which cover most of the biochemical functions encountered in bacterial cells, especially involved in ion transport, DNA repair, and cell wall biosynthesis based on significant enrichment of GO terms. Among them, 185 genes were identified to be associated with PrfA and biofilm formation by comparison of the whole gene expression profiles of L. monocytogenes EGDe and its M-NM-^TprfA mutant. The expression tendency of these PrfA-associated and biofilm-specific genes were mainly opposite in M-NM-^TprfA biofilm, and most of them are involved in phage-related function, membrane bioenergetics, and cell wall. Our results indicated that L. monocytogenes biofilm formation is probably controlled by the complex regulation network involved variable genes required for the different biological pathways. This regulatory network is modified in the prfA deletion mutant in order to maintain its stable biofilm lifestyle. Gene expression of planktonic cells and biofilm cells in Listeria monocytogenes EGDe and prfA isogenic deletion strain EGDeM-NM-^TprfA with cultivated in MEM and BHI for 48 hours, were mesasued using Agilent Listeria monocytogenes customized whole-genome microarray 8x15 array. Three replicates.

Project description:Background The RNA steady-state levels in the cell are a balance between synthesis and degradation rates. Although transcription is important, RNA processing and turnover are also key factors in the regulation of gene expression. In Escherichia coli there are three main exoribonucleases (RNase II, RNase R and PNPase) involved in RNA degradation. Although there are many studies about these exoribonucleases not much is known about their global effect in the transcriptome. Results In order to study the effects of the exoribonucleases on the transcriptome, we sequenced the total RNA (RNA-Seq) from wild-type cells and from mutants for each of the exoribonucleases (∆rnb, ∆rnr and ∆pnp). We compared each of the mutant transcriptome with the wild-type to determine the global effects of the deletion of each exoribonucleases in exponential phase. We determined that the deletion of RNase II significantly affected 187 transcripts, while deletion of RNase R affects 202 transcripts and deletion of PNPase affected 226 transcripts. Surprisingly, many of the transcripts are actually down-regulated in the exoribonuclease mutants when compared to the wild-type control. The results obtained from the transcriptomic analysis pointed to the fact that these enzymes were changing the expression of genes related with flagellum assembly, motility and biofilm formation. The three exoribonucleases affected some stable RNAs, but PNPase was the main exoribonuclease affecting this class of RNAs. We confirmed by qPCR some fold-change values obtained from the RNA-Seq data, we also observed that all the exoribonuclease mutants were significantly less motile than the wild-type cells. Additionally, RNase II and RNase R mutants were shown to produce more biofilm than the wild-type control while the PNPase mutant did not form biofilms. Conclusions In this work we demonstrate how deep sequencing can be used to discover new and relevant functions of the exoribonucleases. We were able to obtain valuable information about the transcripts affected by each of the exoribonucleases and compare the roles of the three enzymes. Our results show that the three exoribonucleases affect cell motility and biofilm formation that are two very important factors for cell survival, especially for pathogenic cells.

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The RNA-binding protein PNPase regulates biofilm formation and virulence in Listeria monocytogenes

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