Dataset Information

Proteogenomic and metabolic adaptations of Staphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT: Background: Chronic lung infection of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients by Staphylococcus aureus is a well-established epidemiological fact. Indeed, S. aureus is the most commonly identified pathogen in the lungs of CF patients. Strikingly the molecular mechanisms underlying S. aureus persistency are not understood. Methods: To gain insights into S. aureus adaptation to CF lungs, we selected pairs of sequential S. aureus isolates from 3 patients with CF and from one patient with non-CF chronic lung disease. We used a combination of genomic, proteomic and metabolomic approaches with functional assays for in-depth characterization of S. aureus long-term persistence during chronic lung infection. Results: For the first time, we show that late S. aureus isolates from CF patients have an increased ability for intracellular survival in CFBE-F508del cells compared to ancestral early isolates. Importantly, the increased ability to persist intracellularly was confirmed for S. aureus isolates within the own patient F508del epithelial cells. An increased ability to form biofilm was also demonstrated. Furthermore, to explain observed phenotypic adaptations, we identified the underlying genetic modifications inducing altered protein expression profiles and notable metabolic changes. These modifications affect several metabolic pathways (e.g., pantothenate and fatty acids) and virulence regulators (encoded by agr and sae loci) that could constitute therapeutic targets. Conclusions: Our results strongly suggest that the intracellular environment might constitute an important niche of persistence and relapse necessitating adapted antibiotic treatments.

INSTRUMENT(S): Q Exactive

ORGANISM(S): Staphylococcus Aureus

SUBMITTER: Chiara guerrera

LAB HEAD: I Chiara GUERRERA

PROVIDER: PXD011281 | Pride | 2021-03-29

REPOSITORIES: Pride

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Staphylococcus aureus is one of the first and most prevalent pathogens cultured from the airways of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, which can persist there for extended periods. Airway infections in CF patients are characterized by a strong inflammatory response of highly recruited neutrophils. One killing mechanism of neutrophils is the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), which capture and eradicate bacteria by extracellular fibers of neutrophil chromatin decorated with antimicrobial granule proteins. S. aureus secretes nuclease, which can degrade NETs. We hypothesized, that S. aureus adapts to the airways of CF patients during persistent infection by escaping from NET-mediated killing via an increase of nuclease activity. Sputum samples of CF patients with chronic S. aureus infection were visualized by confocal microscopy after immuno-fluorescence staining for NET-specific markers, S. aureus bacteria and overall DNA structures. Nuclease activity was analyzed in sequential isogenic long persisting S. aureus isolates, as confirmed by whole genome sequencing, from an individual CF patient using a FRET-based nuclease activity assay. Additionally, some of these isolates were selected and analyzed by qRT-PCR to determine the expression of nuc1 and regulators of interest. NET-killing assays were performed with clinical S. aureus isolates to evaluate killing and bacterial survival depending on nuclease activity. To confirm the role of nuclease during NET-mediated killing, a clinical isolate with low nuclease activity was transformed with a nuclease expression vector (pCM28nuc). Furthermore, two sputa from an individual CF patient were subjected to RNA-sequence analysis to evaluate the activity of nuclease in vivo. In sputa, S. aureus was associated to extracellular DNA structures. Nuclease activity in clinical S. aureus isolates increased in a time-and phenotype-dependent manner. In the clinical isolates, the expression of nuc1 was inversely correlated to the activity of agr and was independent of saeS. NET-mediated killing was significantly higher in S. aureus isolates with low compared to isolates with high nuclease activity. Importantly, transformation of the clinical isolate with low nuclease activity with pCM28nuc conferred protection against NET-mediated killing confirming the beneficial role of nuclease for protection against NETs. Also, nuclease expression in in vivo sputa was high, which underlines the important role of nuclease within the highly inflamed CF airways. In conclusion, our data show that S. aureus adapts to the neutrophil-rich environment of CF airways with increasing nuclease expression most likely to avoid NET-killing during long-term persistence.

Project description:Extensive changes in replication timing occur during early mouse development, but their biological significance remains uncertain. To identify evolutionarily conserved features of replication timing and their relationships to epigenetic properties in humans, we profiled replication timing genome-wide in four human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines, hESC-derived neural precursor cells (NPCs), lymphoblastoid cells, and two independently derived human induced pluripotent stem cell lines (hiPSCs). Results confirm the conservation of coordinately replicated megabase-sized units of chromosomes (replication domains) with stable cell type specific molecular boundaries that consolidate into larger replication domains during differentiation. Replication timing changes encompassed units of 400-800 kb and were coordinated with changes in transcription similar to mouse. Moreover, significant cell-type specific conservation of replication timing profiles was observed across regions of conserved synteny, despite significant species variation in the alignment of replication timing to isochore GC/LINE-1 content. Replication profiling also revealed a closer genome-wide epigenetic alignment of hESCs to mouse epiblast-derived stem cells (mEpiSCs) than to mouse ESCs. Finally, we identify a signature of chromatin modifications marking the boundaries of early replicating domains and a remarkably strong link between spatial proximity of chromatin as measured by Hi-C analysis and replication timing. Together, our results reveal evolutionarily conserved elements of the replication program in mammalian early development, demonstrate the power of replication profiling to identify important epigenetic distinctions between closely related stem cell populations (e.g. ESCs vs. EpiSCs), and strengthen the hypothesis that replication domains are structural and functional units of 3D chromosomal architecture. 8 cell types, with a total of 13 individual replicates (i.e. 5 in duplicates, 3 in single replicates)

Dataset Information

Proteogenomic and metabolic adaptations of Staphylococcus aureus

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure