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The Borrelia burgdorferi CheY3 response regulator is essential for chemotaxis and completion of its natural infection cycle.

ABSTRACT: Borrelia burgdorferi possesses a sophisticated and complex chemotaxis system, but how the organism utilizes this system in its natural enzootic life cycle is poorly understood. Of the three CheY chemotaxis response regulators in B.?burgdorferi, we found that only deletion of cheY3 resulted in an altered motility and significantly reduced chemotaxis phenotype. Although ?cheY3 maintained normal densities in unfed ticks, their numbers were significantly reduced in fed ticks compared with the parental or cheY3-complemented spirochetes. Importantly, mice fed upon by the ?cheY3-infected ticks did not develop a persistent infection. Intravital confocal microscopy analyses discovered that the ?cheY3 spirochetes were motile within skin, but appeared unable to reverse direction and perform the characteristic backward-forward motility displayed by the parental strain. Subsequently, the ?cheY3 became 'trapped' in the skin matrix within days of inoculation, were cleared from the skin needle-inoculation site within 96?h post-injection and did not disseminate to distant tissues. Interestingly, although ?cheY3 cells were cleared within 96?h post-injection, this attenuated infection elicited significant levels of B.?burgdorferi-specific IgM and IgG. Taken together, these data demonstrate that cheY3-mediated chemotaxis is crucial for motility, dissemination and viability of the spirochete both within and between mice and ticks.

SUBMITTER: Novak EA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5116424 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Borrelia burgdorferi CheY3 response regulator is essential for chemotaxis and completion of its natural infection cycle.

Novak Elizabeth A EA Sekar Padmapriya P Xu Hui H Moon Ki Hwan KH Manne Akarsh A Wooten R Mark RM Motaleb Md A MA

Cellular microbiology 20160711 12

Borrelia burgdorferi possesses a sophisticated and complex chemotaxis system, but how the organism utilizes this system in its natural enzootic life cycle is poorly understood. Of the three CheY chemotaxis response regulators in B. burgdorferi, we found that only deletion of cheY3 resulted in an altered motility and significantly reduced chemotaxis phenotype. Although ΔcheY3 maintained normal densities in unfed ticks, their numbers were significantly reduced in fed ticks compared with the parent ...[more]

PMID: 27206578

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Project description:UnlabelledThe Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi has five putative methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCPs). In this report, we provide evidence that a hypothetical protein, BB0569, is essential for the chemotaxis of B. burgdorferi. While BB0569 lacks significant homology to the canonical MCPs, it contains a conserved domain (spanning residues 110 to 170) that is often evident in membrane-bound MCPs such as Tar and Tsr of Escherichia coli. Unlike Tar and Tsr, BB0569 lacks transmembrane regions and recognizable HAMP and methylation domains and is similar to TlpC, a cytoplasmic chemoreceptor of Rhodobacter sphaeroides. An isogenic mutant of BB0569 constantly runs in one direction and fails to respond to attractants, indicating that BB0569 is essential for chemotaxis. Immunofluorescence, green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion, and cryo-electron tomography analyses demonstrate that BB0569 localizes at the cell poles and is required for chemoreceptor clustering at the cell poles. Protein cross-linking studies reveal that BB0569 forms large protein complexes with MCP3, indicative of its interactions with other MCPs. Interestingly, analysis of B. burgdorferi mcp mutants shows that inactivation of either mcp2 or mcp3 reduces the level of BB0569 substantially and that such a reduction is caused by protein turnover. Collectively, these results demonstrate that the domain composition and function of BB0569 are similar in some respects to those of TlpC but that these proteins are different in their cellular locations, further highlighting that the chemotaxis of B. burgdorferi is unique and different from the Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica paradigm.ImportanceSpirochete chemotaxis differs substantially from the Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica paradigm, and the basis for controlling the rotation of the bundles of periplasmic flagella at each end of the cell is unknown. In recent years, Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, has been used as a model organism to understand spirochete chemotaxis and its role in infectious processes of the disease. In this report, BB0569, a hypothetical protein of B. burgdorferi, has been investigated by using an approach of genetic, biochemistry, and cryo-electron tomography analyses. The results indicate that BB0569 has a distinct role in chemotaxis that may be unique to spirochetes and represents a novel paradigm.

Dataset Information

The Borrelia burgdorferi CheY3 response regulator is essential for chemotaxis and completion of its natural infection cycle.

Publications

The Borrelia burgdorferi CheY3 response regulator is essential for chemotaxis and completion of its natural infection cycle.

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