Project description:Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is an important porcine respiratory pathogen causing great economic losses in the pig industry worldwide. Oxygen deprivation is a stress that A. pleuropneumoniae will encounter during both early infection and the later, persistent stage. To understand modulation of A. pleuropneumoniae gene expression in response to the stress caused by anaerobic conditions, gene expression profiles under anaerobic and aerobic conditions were compared in this study. The microarray results showed that 631 genes (27.7% of the total ORFs) were differentially expressed in anaerobic conditions. Many genes encoding proteins involved in glycolysis, carbon source uptake systems, pyruvate metabolism, fermentation and the electron respiration transport chain were up-regulated. These changes led to an increased amount of pyruvate, lactate, ethanol and acetate in the bacterial cells as confirmed by metabolite detection. Genes encoding proteins involved in cell surface structures, especially biofilm formation, peptidoglycan biosynthesis and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis were up-regulated as well. Biofilm formation was significantly enhanced under anaerobic conditions. These results indicate that induction of central metabolism is important for basic survival of A. pleuropneumoniae after a shift to an anaerobic environment. Enhanced biofilm formation may contribute to the persistence of this pathogen in the damaged anaerobic host tissue and also in the early colonization stage. These discoveries give new insights into adaptation mechanisms of A. pleuropneumoniae in response to environmental stress.
Project description:Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is an important porcine respiratory pathogen causing great economic losses in the pig industry worldwide. Oxygen deprivation is a stress that A. pleuropneumoniae will encounter during both early infection and the later, persistent stage. To understand modulation of A. pleuropneumoniae gene expression in response to the stress caused by anaerobic conditions, gene expression profiles under anaerobic and aerobic conditions were compared in this study. The microarray results showed that 631 genes (27.7% of the total ORFs) were differentially expressed in anaerobic conditions. Many genes encoding proteins involved in glycolysis, carbon source uptake systems, pyruvate metabolism, fermentation and the electron respiration transport chain were up-regulated. These changes led to an increased amount of pyruvate, lactate, ethanol and acetate in the bacterial cells as confirmed by metabolite detection. Genes encoding proteins involved in cell surface structures, especially biofilm formation, peptidoglycan biosynthesis and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis were up-regulated as well. Biofilm formation was significantly enhanced under anaerobic conditions. These results indicate that induction of central metabolism is important for basic survival of A. pleuropneumoniae after a shift to an anaerobic environment. Enhanced biofilm formation may contribute to the persistence of this pathogen in the damaged anaerobic host tissue and also in the early colonization stage. These discoveries give new insights into adaptation mechanisms of A. pleuropneumoniae in response to environmental stress. Transcriptional profiles were analyzed using microarray to compare the gene expressions of A. pleuropneumoniae cultured under aerobic and anaerobic condition. The bacteria was cultured under aerobic condition to mid-log phase (3 hours) and then divided into two separate groups, one group was continually cultured under aerobic condition for 1 hour (OD600nm = 0.417 M-BM-1 0.008) and the other group was cultured under anaerobic condition for 1 hour (OD600nm = 0.333 M-BM-1 0.015). Three independent biological replicates were performed. The total RNA were extracted and hybridized with the whole genome microarray of A. pleuropneumoniae. The signal intensities were normalized and transformed into log2 values. The genes with P-value < 0.05 were selected as differentially expressed genes.
Project description:To determine the role of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae two-component system QseBQseC, we constructed a qseBqseC gene-deleted mutant ΔqseBΔqseC based on the wild type A. pleuropneumoniae 4074. The transcriptional profiles were compared between the A. pleuropneumoniae ΔqseBΔqseC and its parental strain under the normal growth condition using microarray. A total of 44 genes were found differentially expressed (DE) compared to the wild type strain. These functional genes are primarily related to metabolism, cell wall biogenesis, energy, replication and recombination. Further investigations indicated that the type IV pili (Tfp) assembly protein PilM is regulated directly by QseB, and PilM is essential for adherence and virulence. Characterization of the QseBQseC regulon genes will provides new insight into understanding of the relevant signal transduction pathways and prevention of the infection. A. pleuropneumoniae strains were cultured in TSB medium supplemented with 10 μg/ml of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and 10% (v/v)filtered cattle serum at 37℃. The samples were collected at the mid-exponential phase and the total RNA were extracted using RNA-Solv Reagent (Omega) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Expression profiles of two different Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (4074 and ΔqseBΔqseC) were determined. The fold changes >=1.5 or <=-1.5 were selected as differentially expressed genes.
Project description:To determine the role of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae two-component system QseBQseC, we constructed a qseBqseC gene-deleted mutant ΔqseBΔqseC based on the wild type A. pleuropneumoniae 4074. The transcriptional profiles were compared between the A. pleuropneumoniae ΔqseBΔqseC and its parental strain under the normal growth condition using microarray. A total of 44 genes were found differentially expressed (DE) compared to the wild type strain. These functional genes are primarily related to metabolism, cell wall biogenesis, energy, replication and recombination. Further investigations indicated that the type IV pili (Tfp) assembly protein PilM is regulated directly by QseB, and PilM is essential for adherence and virulence. Characterization of the QseBQseC regulon genes will provides new insight into understanding of the relevant signal transduction pathways and prevention of the infection.
Project description:LuxS is an enzyme involved in the activated methyl cycle and the by-product autoinducer 2 (AI-2) was a quorum sensing signal in some species. In our previous study, the functional LuxS in AI-2 production was verified in the porcine respiratory pathogen Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. Enhanced biofilm formation and reduced virulence were observed in the luxS mutant. To comprehensively understand the luxS function, in this study, the transcriptional profiles were compared between the A. pleuropneumoniae luxS mutant and its parental strain in four different growth phases using microarray. Many genes associated with infection were differentially expressed. The biofilm formation genes pgaABC in the luxS mutant were up-regulated in early exponential phase, while 8 genes associated with adhesion were down-regulated in late exponential phase. A group of genes involved in iron acquisition and metabolism were regulated in four growth phases. Further investigations on these virulence traits demonstrated that the luxS mutant showed enhanced biofilm formation and reduced adhesion ability and these effects were not due to lack of AI-2. But AI-2 could increase biofilm formation and adhesion of A. pleuropneumoniae independent of LuxS. Growth under iron restricted condition could be controlled by LuxS through AI-2 production. These results revealed pleiotropic roles of LuxS and AI-2 on A. pleuropneumoniae virulence traits.
Project description:To reveal the transcriptional profiles of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae under biofilm and planktonic growth, we established a biofilm-forming culture method and constructed a mutant strain Δpga with defect in biofilm formation. Wild-type and Δpga mutant strains of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae strain 4074 were cultured in bottles with shaking for planktonic (WT_PK) and in microplates in static status for biofilm (WT_BF, Δpga), respectively. The bacteria in logarithmic growth period of different culture groups were collected for RNA seq.
Project description:LuxS is an enzyme involved in the activated methyl cycle and the by-product autoinducer 2 (AI-2) was a quorum sensing signal in some species. In our previous study, the functional LuxS in AI-2 production was verified in the porcine respiratory pathogen Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. Enhanced biofilm formation and reduced virulence were observed in the luxS mutant. To comprehensively understand the luxS function, in this study, the transcriptional profiles were compared between the A. pleuropneumoniae luxS mutant and its parental strain in four different growth phases using microarray. Many genes associated with infection were differentially expressed. The biofilm formation genes pgaABC in the luxS mutant were up-regulated in early exponential phase, while 8 genes associated with adhesion were down-regulated in late exponential phase. A group of genes involved in iron acquisition and metabolism were regulated in four growth phases. Further investigations on these virulence traits demonstrated that the luxS mutant showed enhanced biofilm formation and reduced adhesion ability and these effects were not due to lack of AI-2. But AI-2 could increase biofilm formation and adhesion of A. pleuropneumoniae independent of LuxS. Growth under iron restricted condition could be controlled by LuxS through AI-2 production. These results revealed pleiotropic roles of LuxS and AI-2 on A. pleuropneumoniae virulence traits. A. pleuropneumoniae strains were cultured in TSB medium supplemented with 10 M-NM-<g/ml of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and 10% (v/v)filtered cattle serum at 37M-BM-0C. The samples were collected from early exponential phase, middle exponential phase, late exponential phase and stationary phase respectively and the total RNA were extracted using RNA-Solv Reagent (Omega) according to the manufacturerM-bM-^@M-^Ys instructions. For each time point, four biological replicates were combined into two samples. The intensities were normalized and transformed into log2 value.The fold changes >=1.5 or <=-1.5 were selected as differentially expressed genes.