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The Stringent Response Determines the Ability of a Commensal Bacterium to Survive Starvation and to Persist in the Gut.

ABSTRACT: In the mammalian gut, bacteria compete for resources to maintain their populations, but the factors determining their success are poorly understood. We report that the human gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron relies on the stringent response, an intracellular signaling pathway that allocates resources away from growth, to survive carbon starvation and persist in the gut. Genome-scale transcriptomics, 13C-labeling, and metabolomics analyses reveal that B. thetaiotaomicron uses the alarmone (p)ppGpp to repress multiple biosynthetic pathways and upregulate tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle genes in these conditions. During carbon starvation, (p)ppGpp triggers accumulation of the metabolite alpha-ketoglutarate, which itself acts as a metabolic regulator; alpha-ketoglutarate supplementation restores viability to a (p)ppGpp-deficient strain. These studies uncover how commensal bacteria adapt to the gut by modulating central metabolism and reveal that halting rather than accelerating growth can be a determining factor for membership in the gut microbiome.

SUBMITTER: Schofield WB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6086485 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Stringent Response Determines the Ability of a Commensal Bacterium to Survive Starvation and to Persist in the Gut.

Schofield Whitman B WB Zimmermann-Kogadeeva Maria M Zimmermann Michael M Barry Natasha A NA Goodman Andrew L AL

Cell host & microbe 20180628 1

In the mammalian gut, bacteria compete for resources to maintain their populations, but the factors determining their success are poorly understood. We report that the human gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron relies on the stringent response, an intracellular signaling pathway that allocates resources away from growth, to survive carbon starvation and persist in the gut. Genome-scale transcriptomics, <sup>13</sup>C-labeling, and metabolomics analyses reveal that B. thetaiotaomicron uses ...[more]

PMID: 30008292

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Project description:Transcription profiling of wild type, relA-, and relA-spoT-, crp-, dksA-, rpoS-, lrp- mutant strains of E. coli starved for isoleucine Bacteria comprehensively reorganize their global gene expression when faced with nutrient exhaustion. In Escherichia coli and other free-living bacteria, the alarmone ppGpp facilitates this massive response by directly or indirectly coordinating the down-regulation of genes of the translation apparatus, and the induction of biosynthetic genes and the general stress response. Such a large reorientation likely requires the cooperative activities of many different genetic regulators, yet the structure of the transcription network below the level of ppGpp remains poorly defined. Using isoleucine starvation as an experimental model system for amino acid starvation, we identified genes that required ppGpp, Lrp, and RpoS for their induction. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of genes controlled by Lrp and RpoS required ppGpp for their activation, we found that these two regulons were not induced simultaneously. The data reported here suggest that metabolic genes, such as those of the Lrp regulon, require only a low basal level of ppGpp for their efficient induction. In contrast, the RpoS-dependent general stress response is not robustly induced until relatively high levels of ppGpp accumulate. Here we describe a data-driven conceptual model that explains how bacterial cells allocate transcriptional resources between metabolic and stress survival processes by discretely tuning regulatory activities to a central indicator of cellular physiology. The regulatory structure that emerges is consistent with a rheostatic model of the stringent response that allows cells to efficiently adapt to a wide range of nutritional environments. Keywords: genetic modification design; stress response; isoleucine starvation Two experiments were run. First experiment: WT and several mutant strains were starved for isoleucine (exhaustion of 60 uM ile). 40 minutes after starvation, RNA was extracted. All samples were compared to RNA from rapidly growing WT cells in identical medium replete with isoleucine (400 uM). 16 samples were hybridized: duplicates of 8 strains/conditions. Wildtype in log phase (OD = 0.4) with replete ile was control for ile starved samples. Second experiment: WT strain was starved for isoleucine (exhaustion of 60 uM ile). RNA was extracted at 12 timepoints as the cells entered stationary phase. All samples were compared to RNA from rapidly growing WT cells in identical medium replete with isoleucine (400 uM). 14 samples were hybridized: duplicates of the control condition and single timepoints during starvation. Wildtype in log phase (OD = 0.4) with replete ile was control for ile starved samples.

Project description:Guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp) is a key mediator of stringent control, an adaptive response of bacteria to amino acid starvation, and has thus been termed a bacterial alarmone. Previous X-ray crystallographic analysis has provided a structural basis for the transcriptional regulation of RNA polymerase activity by ppGpp in the thermophilic bacterium Thermus thermophilus. Here we investigated the physiological basis of the stringent response by comparing the changes in intracellular ppGpp levels and the rate of RNA synthesis in stringent (rel(+); wild type) and relaxed (relA and relC; mutant) strains of T. thermophilus. We found that in wild-type T. thermophilus, as in other bacteria, serine hydroxamate, an amino acid analogue that inhibits tRNA(Ser) aminoacylation, elicited a stringent response characterized in part by intracellular accumulation of ppGpp and that this response was completely blocked in a relA-null mutant and partially blocked in a relC mutant harboring a mutation in the ribosomal protein L11. Subsequent in vitro assays using ribosomes isolated from wild-type and relA and relC mutant strains confirmed that (p)ppGpp is synthesized by ribosomes and that mutation of RelA or L11 blocks that activity. This conclusion was further confirmed in vitro by demonstrating that thiostrepton or tetracycline inhibits (p)ppGpp synthesis. In an in vitro system, (p)ppGpp acted by inhibiting RNA polymerase-catalyzed 23S/5S rRNA gene transcription but at a concentration much higher than that of the observed intracellular ppGpp pool size. On the other hand, changes in the rRNA gene promoter activity tightly correlated with changes in the GTP but not ATP concentration. Also, (p)ppGpp exerted a potent inhibitory effect on IMP dehydrogenase activity. The present data thus complement the earlier structural analysis by providing physiological evidence that T. thermophilus does produce ppGpp in response to amino acid starvation in a ribosome-dependent (i.e., RelA-dependent) manner. However, it appears that in T. thermophilus, rRNA promoter activity is controlled directly by the GTP pool size, which is modulated by ppGpp via inhibition of IMP dehydrogenase activity. Thus, unlike the case of Escherichia coli, ppGpp may not inhibit T. thermophilus RNA polymerase activity directly in vivo, as recently proposed for Bacillus subtilis rRNA transcription (L. Krasny and R. L. Gourse, EMBO J. 23:4473-4483, 2004).

Dataset Information

The Stringent Response Determines the Ability of a Commensal Bacterium to Survive Starvation and to Persist in the Gut.

Publications

The Stringent Response Determines the Ability of a Commensal Bacterium to Survive Starvation and to Persist in the Gut.

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