The antibiotics potentiator bicarbonate causes upregulation of tryptophanase and iron acquisition proteins in Escherichia coli
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ABSTRACT: We have reported that bicarbonate (NaHCO3) potentiates the activity of aminoglycosides in Escherichia coli, but the action mechanism was not identified. To eventually understand how NaHCO3 can potentiate antibiotics, we thought that a rational first step was to examine the effect of NaHCO3 separately and to inspect initial gene expression changes triggered by it. In this work we started by confirming that NaHCO3 can reduce the number of viable E. coli bacteria. We then investigated, via RNAseq, gene expression changes induced by NaHCO3. There were upregulated and downregulated genes, among the top upregulated genes (~10-fold increase in expression) was tnaA, the gene encoding tryptophanase (TnaA), the enzyme that degrades tryptophan to indole. Considering that higher expression of tnaA likely led to increases in indole, we tested the effect of indole and found both growth inhibition and synergy with NaHCO3. We suggest that indole may participate in growth inhibition of E. coli. The RNAseq analysis also revealed upregulation (≥4-fold) of genes encoding proteins for the acquisition of iron and downregulation (≥16-fold) of genes encoding iron-sulfur-holding proteins, hence NaHCO3 apparently triggered also an iron deficit response. We suggest that iron deficiency may also be involved in growth inhibition by NaHCO3.
ORGANISM(S): Escherichia coli
PROVIDER: GSE110493 | GEO | 2018/11/01
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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