Project description:Bacterial metabolites are substrates of virulence factors of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), but the mechanism underlying the role of functional metabolites in bacterial virulence from the perspective of small molecular metabolism is unclear. In the present study, we used a strategy of functional metabolomics integrated with bacterial genetics in attempt to decipher the mechanism of virulence formation in Escherichia coli (E. coli) from the viewpoint of small molecule metabolism. We identified the virulence-associated metabolome via analysis of the primary metabolome of the pathogenic UTI89 strain and the non-pathogenic MG1655 strain. Then, the iron-mediated virulence associated metabolome was identified by an iron fishing strategy. Also, the mechanism of siderophores in regulating pathogenicity in different environments was explored by investigating the effect of iron on siderophore biosynthesis. Finally, by knocking out genes related to siderophore biosynthesis, siderophore transport and iron utilization, siderophores dependent iron-regulating virulence associated metabolome, including 18 functional metabolites, was identified and verified to be involved in the regulation of bacterial virulence. Based on this we found that these functional metabolites regulated the virulence of E. coli by targeting multiple metabolic pathways in an iron-siderophores dependent manner. Moreover, a quantitative proteomics approach was implemented to further elucidate the mechanism of functional metabolites and functional proteins in modulating bacterial virulence. And our findings demonstrated that functional proteins regulated the virulence of E. coli by mediating iron binding, iron-siderophore transmembrane transport, and the biosynthesis and expression of functional metabolites. Interestingly, we found that functional metabolites enhance the virulence of E. coli by specifically modulating the key metabolic pathways involved in purine metabolism, proline metabolism, arginine metabolism and pyrimidine metabolism. Taken together, our study identified for the first time 18 functional metabolites regulating the of E. coli virulence, greatly enriching our understanding of the mechanism of functional metabolites that regulate the E. coli virulence by targeting primary metabolism, which will largely contribute to the development of new strategies to target virulence-based diagnosis and therapy of infections caused by different pathogens.

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The esterase PfeE, Achilles heel in the battle for iron between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli

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