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Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the ?-Barrel Fold.

ABSTRACT: There are around 100 varieties of outer membrane proteins in each Gram-negative bacteria. All of these proteins have the same fold-an up-down ?-barrel. It has been suggested that all membrane ?-barrels excluding lysins are homologous. Here we suggest that ?-barrels of efflux pumps have converged on this fold as well. By grouping structurally solved outer membrane ?-barrels (OMBBs) by sequence we find that the membrane environment may have led to convergent evolution of the barrel fold. Specifically, the lack of sequence linkage to other barrels coupled with distinctive structural differences, such as differences in strand tilt and barrel radius, suggest that the outer membrane factor of efflux pumps evolutionarily converged on the barrel. Rather than being related to other OMBBs, sequence and structural similarity in the periplasmic region of the outer membrane factor of efflux pumps suggests an evolutionary link to the periplasmic subunit of the same pump complex.

SUBMITTER: Franklin MW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6125174 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the β-Barrel Fold.

Franklin Meghan Whitney MW Nepomnyachiy Sergey S Feehan Ryan R Ben-Tal Nir N Kolodny Rachel R Slusky Joanna S G JSG

Structure (London, England : 1993) 20180726 9

There are around 100 varieties of outer membrane proteins in each Gram-negative bacteria. All of these proteins have the same fold-an up-down β-barrel. It has been suggested that all membrane β-barrels excluding lysins are homologous. Here we suggest that β-barrels of efflux pumps have converged on this fold as well. By grouping structurally solved outer membrane β-barrels (OMBBs) by sequence we find that the membrane environment may have led to convergent evolution of the barrel fold. Specifica ...[more]

PMID: 30057025

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Project description:RND (Resistance-Nodulation-Division) family transporters are widespread especially among Gram-negative bacteria, and catalyze the active efflux of many antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents. They have very large periplasmic domains, and form tripartite complexes with outer membrane channels and periplasmic adaptor proteins. AcrAB-TolC complex of Escherichia coli, which pumps out a very wide range of drugs, has been studied most intensively. Early studies showed that the transporter captures even those substrates that cannot permeate across the cytoplasmic membrane, such as dianionic beta-lactams, suggesting that the capture can occur from the periplasm. It was also suggested that the capture occurs from the cytoplasmic membrane/periplasm interface, because most substrates contain a sizable hydrophobic domain; however, this may simply be a reflection of the nature of the binding site within AcrB. Genetic studies of chimeric transporters showed that much of the substrate specificity is determined by their periplasmic domains. Biochemical studies with intact cells recently led to the determination of the kinetic constants of AcrB for some beta-lactams, and the result confirms the old prediction that AcrB is a rather slow pump. Reconstitution of purified AcrB and its relatives showed that the pump is a drug/proton antiporter, that AcrA strongly stimulates the activity of the pump, and that AcrB seems to have a highest affinity for conjugated bile salts. Structural study with mutants of the network of charged residues in the transmembrane domain showed that protonation here produced a far-reaching conformational change, which was found to be present in one of the protomers in the asymmetric crystal structure of the wild-type AcrB. The functional rotatory hypothesis then predicts that the drug bound in the periplasmic domain is extruded through this conformational change initiated by the protonation of one of the residues in the aforementioned network, an idea that was recently supported by disulfide cross-linking as well as by the behavior of linked AcrB protomers.

Project description:Antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii causes infections that are extremely difficult to treat. A significant role in these resistance profiles is attributed to multidrug efflux pumps, especially those belonging to the resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND) superfamily of transporters. In this study, we analyzed functions and properties of RND efflux pumps in A. baumannii ATCC 17978. This strain is susceptible to antibiotics and does not contain mutations that are commonly selected upon exposure to high concentrations of antibiotics. We constructed derivatives of ATCC 17978 lacking chromosomally encoded RND pumps and complemented these strains by the plasmid-borne genes. We analyzed the substrate selectivities and efficiencies of the individual pumps in the context of native outer membranes and their hyperporinated variants. Our results show that inactivation of AdeIJK provides the strongest potentiation of antibiotic activities, whereas inactivation of AdeFGH triggers the overexpression of AdeAB. The plasmid-borne overproduction complements the hypersusceptible phenotypes of the efflux deletion mutants to the levels of the parental ATCC 17978. Only a few antibiotics strongly benefitted from the overproduction of efflux pumps and antibacterial activities of some of those depended on the synergistic interaction with the low permeability barrier of the outer membrane. Either overproduction or inactivation of efflux pumps change dramatically the lipidome of ATCC 17978. We conclude that efflux pumps of A. baumannii are tightly integrated into physiology of this bacterium and that clinical levels of antibiotic resistance in A. baumannii isolates are unlikely to be reached solely due to the overproduction of RND efflux pumps.IMPORTANCE RND-type efflux pumps are important contributors in development of clinical antibiotic resistance in A. baumannii However, their specific roles and the extent of contribution to antibiotic resistance remain unclear. We analyzed antibacterial activities of antibiotics in strains with different permeability barriers and found that the role of active efflux in antibiotic resistance of A. baumannii is limited to a few select antibiotics. Our results further show that the impact of efflux pump overproduction on antibiotic susceptibility is significantly lower than the previously reported for clinical isolates. Additional mechanisms of resistance, in particular those that improve the permeability barriers of bacterial cells and act synergistically with active efflux pumps are likely involved in antibiotic resistance of clinical A. baumannii isolates.

Project description:Increasing rates of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection are one of the most pressing contemporary global health concerns. The ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species) have been identified as the leading global cause of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, and overexpression of multidrug efflux (MEX) transport systems has been identified as one of the most critical mechanisms facilitating the evolution of multidrug resistance in ESKAPE pathogens. Despite efforts to develop efflux pump inhibitors to combat antibiotic resistance, the need persists to identify additional targets for future investigations. We evaluated evolutionary pressures on 110 MEX-encoding genes from all annotated ESKAPE organism genomes. We identify several MEX genes under stabilizing selection-representing targets which can facilitate broad-spectrum treatments with evolutionary constraints limiting the potential emergence of escape mutants. We also examine MEX systems being evaluated as drug targets, demonstrating that divergent selection may underlie some of the problems encountered in the development of effective treatments-specifically in relation to the NorA system in S. aureus. This study provides a comprehensive evolutionary context to efflux in the ESKAPE pathogens, which will provide critical context to the evaluation of efflux systems as antibiotic targets. IMPORTANCE Increasing rates of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection are one of the most pressing contemporary global health concerns. The ESKAPE pathogen group represents the leading cause of these infections, and upregulation of efflux pump expression is a significant mechanism of resistance in these pathogens. This has resulted in substantial interest in the development of efflux pump inhibitors to combat antibiotic-resistant infections; however, no widespread treatments have been developed to date. Our study evaluates an often-underappreciated aspect of resistance-the impact of evolutionary selection. We evaluate selection on all annotated efflux genes in all sequenced ESKAPE pathogens, providing critical context for and insight into current and future development of efflux-targeting treatments for resistant bacterial infections.

Dataset Information

Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the ?-Barrel Fold.

Publications

Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the β-Barrel Fold.

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