Journal of Bacteriology, November 1998, p. 6072-6075, Vol. 180, No. 22
Laboratoire des Réseaux de
Régulations, Institut de Génétique et
Microbiologie, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS/URA2225, F-91405
Orsay Cedex, France
Received 30 June 1998/Accepted 16 September 1998
Expression of cloned genes from
isopropyl- The emergence of pathogenic bacteria
with multiple resistance to antibiotics is a challenge for health
treatments. The multidrug resistance (MDR) phenotype is often
associated with increased activity of efflux pumps, which are
responsible for extrusion from the cell of a broad array of sometimes
unrelated toxic compounds (see references 6, 19, and
21 for reviews). It was first shown that tumor cells
with MDR phenotypes overexpress P glycoproteins (P-gp), which are
responsible for expulsion of antitumor agents, thus preventing their
accumulation to an effective level. P-gp belong to the ABC (ATP-binding
cassette) transporter family, and the extrusion energy is provided by
ATP hydrolysis. To date, the LmrA protein from Lactococcus
lactis is the only known bacterial P-gp homologue (29,
30). Most bacterial transporters utilize proton motive force as
the driving force for drug export. They are classified into three
groups: (i) the major facilitator superfamily (MFS) with 12 or 14 transmembrane segments (TMS), exemplified by EmrB in
Escherichia coli; (ii) the resistance nodulation division family with 12 TMS, mainly found in gram-negative bacteria, such as
AcrB in E. coli; (iii) the small multidrug resistance
family with only four TMS (e.g., EmrE in E. coli). The
gram negative MFS and TMS multidrug efflux transporters are often
associated with periplasmic linker proteins and outer membrane channels.
We report the selection and characterization of plasmids encoding
an E. coli multidrug efflux pump from the MFS group,
recently characterized under the names Cmr (22) and MdfA
(14); the gene was originally designated cmlA
(25, 26).
Strains and plasmids used in this study are listed in Table
1.
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The Escherichia coli cmlA Gene Encodes the Multidrug
Efflux Pump Cmr/MdfA and Is Responsible for
Isopropyl-
-D-Thiogalactopyranoside Exclusion and
Spectinomycin Sensitivity
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ABSTRACT
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Abstract
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-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG)-regulated
promoters is lowered when the Escherichia coli
CmlA/Cmr/MdfA efflux pump is overexpressed, probably due to IPTG
exclusion from the cytoplasm. The previously reported cmlA1
mutation confers a similar phenotype. cmlA1 contains an IS30 insertion upstream of cmr/mdfA, which
creates a putative promoter. CmlA overproduction also causes
spectinomycin hypersensitivity.
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TEXT
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Abstract
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TABLE 1.
Bacterial strains and plasmids used in this work
Plasmid pCTCIII-induced lethality.
The cIII protein of
phage
is responsible for E. coli growth
inhibition. Plasmid pCTCIII (23) carries the
cIII gene
downstream of the Ptac promoter such that expression of the
cIII gene can be conditionally induced by addition of the
gratuitous inducer isopropyl-
-D-thiogalactopyranoside
(IPTG) to the medium. The survival frequency of strain PhB782
carrying pCTCIII at 37°C on rich medium containing 10
4
M IPTG is less than 10
6.
Suppression of pCTCIII-induced lethality.
Strain PhB782
carrying pCTCIII was transformed by an E. coli genomic
DNA library (prepared from E. coli C600), and clones resistant to
cIII-induced lethality were selected. On medium containing 10
4 M IPTG, the survival frequency was 6 × 10
5 per transformant, and no clones were obtained on
5 × 10
3 M IPTG. Most plasmids conferring resistance
carried a fragment from the 19-min region of the E. coli chromosome. Restriction analysis suggested that the
cmr/mdfA gene (see below) was responsible for the survival
phenotype. We amplified solely the cmr/mdfA gene from
position 882438 to 884205 of the E. coli DNA map
(5) by PCR using the primers
TACCCGGGTTATCACCAGTTGCCGTTGTG and
CTGAAGCTTATCGAACACCAGATTGACGA. The PCR
product digested by SmaI and HindIII
and ligated to SmaI- and HindIII-treated pKS
(Stratagene, Cambridge, United Kingdom) gave rise to pKSCMLA.
When pKSCMLA was established in PhB782 carrying pCTCIII,
the strain became resistant to 10
4 M IPTG. The
E. coli Cmr/MdfA (14, 22) multidrug efflux
pump is responsible for resistance to chloramphenicol and to many
structurally unrelated toxic compounds such as lipophiles (e.g.,
ethidium bromide, puromycin, and tetracycline), macrolides (e.g.,
erythromycin), aminoglycosides (e.g., neomycin), and quinolones (e.g.,
norfloxacin) (14, 22). Its activity is proton motive force
dependent (14, 22).
The cmlA1 mutation is an allele of cmr/mdfA.
The cmlA locus was characterized in 1966 by an allele,
cmlA1, conferring resistance to chloramphenicol (25,
26); multicopy plasmids carrying the cmr/mdfA gene
also confer chloramphenicol resistance. Since cmlA, like
cmr/mdfA, is adjacent to deoR (27), we
hypothesized that cmlA is identical to cmr/mdfA.
We found that the cmlA1 mutation (strain RE103) is due to an
IS30 sequence upstream of cmr/mdfA (Fig. 1)
which was not present in RC712, an isogenic strain. The IS30
right inverted repeat is known to carry a potential
35
transcriptional promoter which, after transposition, may induce gene
activation (9-11). The IS30 insertion upstream
of cmr/mdfA in the cmlA1 strain creates a
putative
70 promoter, presumably increasing
cmr/mdfA activity (Fig. 1).
The cmlA gene, as initially referred to on the E. coli genetic map (1), is identical to the
cmr/mdfA gene; we will therefore now refer to the
original name, cmlA (14, 22). However, note that it differs from the In4 integron cmlA gene of
Tn1696 (4).
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The cmlA1 mutation confers resistance to
pCTCIII-induced lethality.
We hypothesized that the
cmlA1 mutation could also suppress pCTCIII-induced
lethality. We constructed isogenic cmlA+
(PhB1010) and cmlA1 (PhB1011) strains and transformed them
with pSC101lacIq and pCTCIII. Upon challenge
with 5 × 10
5 M IPTG, the cmlA1 mutation
conferred full resistance, while the survival frequency of the isogenic
cmlA+ strain was 2 × 10
5.
The cmlA1 phenotype is similar to that induced by multicopy plasmids containing wild-type cmlA, suggesting that the
cmlA1 mutation was responsible for increased CmlA activity.
cmlA overexpression protects against the effects of a
second IPTG-induced lethal gene.
Induction of the lactococcal
phage bIL66 M operon in E. coli cells leads to
cell death due to extensive degradation of chromosomal DNA
(2, 3). Plasmid pIL1991 (3) carries the M operon cloned under the control of an early phage T7 promoter combined with
two lac operators (PA1-O4/O3); this tightly
repressed promoter is activated upon induction with IPTG
(18). The isogenic cmlA+ (PhB1010)
and cmlA1 (PhB1011) strains were transformed with
pSC101lacIq and pIL1991; cells containing the
cmlA1 mutation survived in the presence of 10
4
M IPTG, while growth of the isogenic cmlA+
strain was prevented by addition of only 5 × 10
5 M
IPTG to the medium. Overproduction of CmlA results in nonspecific protection against
cIII or against the lactococcal phage bIL66 M
operon when their expression is induced by IPTG.
Overexpression of cmlA results in delayed IPTG-induced
-galactosidase synthesis.
We hypothesized that the CmlA efflux
pump could exclude IPTG, thus lowering its intracellular concentration
and reducing expression of these toxic proteins. Endogenous
-galactosidase activity (which is under the control of the LacI
repressor) was measured after IPTG induction in
cmlA+ (PhB1010) and cmlA1 (PhB1011)
isogenic strains and in a cmlA+ strain
transformed with pBRCMLA (pBRCMLA results from the PCR product
described above digested by AvaI and HindIII
and ligated into AvaI- and HindIII-treated
pBR322) or the control plasmid pBR322. The induction of
-galactosidase was immediate in the control strains but delayed for
90 min in the cmlA1 or cmlA+/pBRCMLA
strain (Fig. 2). All strains showed an
identical induced level of
-galactosidase activity when expression
was induced by addition of 0.4% lactose to the medium (data not
shown). We conclude that CmlA-dependent survival against IPTG-induced
lethality is caused by reduced expression from IPTG promoters, probably due to IPTG exclusion.
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CmlA overexpression confers susceptibility to spectinomycin.
We encountered difficulties in selecting pGB2 derivatives of
cmlA1 strains on plates containing spectinomycin (100 µg/ml). pGB2 (8) carries aadA (17)
encoding aminoglycoside 3"-adenylyltransferase [AAD(3")(9)], a modifying enzyme which inactivates both
streptomycin and spectinomycin (13). Transformants were
obtained at low frequencies and grew very poorly, while they grew
normally in the absence of spectinomycin. When streptomycin (50 µg/ml) was used for selection the plating efficiency was not affected
by cmlA1. These observations suggested that CmlA
overproduction was responsible for spectinomycin sensitivity despite
the expression of aadA. The spectinomycin MIC (defined
as producing <10
3 plating efficiency) in PhB1010
transformed with pGB2 and pKS (control plasmid) was >100 µg/ml. It
was markedly lower, 10 µg/ml, in a strain transformed with pGB2 and
pKSCMLA, which overproduces CmlA.
Conclusion.
The synthetic, nonmetabolizable
-galactoside
IPTG is a classical gratuitous inducer of genes controlled by the Lac
repressor. We show here that IPTG-induced lethality, which is obtained
when expression of toxic proteins is under the control of
lac operators, is markedly decreased when the wild-type
cmlA (alias cmr or mdfA [14,
22]) gene is cloned on a multicopy plasmid. A similar but less
marked effect was observed in the cmlA1 strain.
Overproduction of CmlA by means of a multicopy plasmid (carrying
cmlA) or by cmlA1 mutation also delays the time
needed to induce the lac operon by IPTG. Our results suggest
that an excess of CmlA lowers the IPTG concentration inside the cell.
This could be due either to a membrane disturbance, which antagonizes
the import of IPTG into the cell, or to direct export of IPTG by the
CmlA efflux pump. Nilsen et al. pointed out the presence of an
intracellular common motif for sugar transport (SDRIGRRPVMLAG) between
transmembrane fragments 2 and 3 of CmlA (22). This motif is
also found in YjiO (the closest E. coli CmlA homolog),
in a few other MDR proteins (Bmr1 and Bmr2 in Bacillus
subtilis and tetracycline resistance proteins), and in numerous
sugar transporters. The presence of a sugar transport motif in CmlA
leads us to ask whether it has
-galactoside export function. As
the lactose operon has been extensively studied and is the
paradigm for gene regulation, it is surprising that cmlA has
not been previously described as a gene which could affect its expression.
-lactam and aminoglycoside hypersensitivity
(15, 16). However, these mutations could affect other
targets. Here, we show a dramatic effect of direct overproduction of
the efflux pump CmlA on pGB2-mediated spectinomycin resistance. Since
the streptomycin resistance is not affected, AAD(3")(9) is
probably fully functional. Furthermore, pKSCMLA induces
spectinomycin hypersensitivity in the absence of
AAD(3")(9). In contrast to that of common
aminoglycosides (12), little is known concerning
spectinomycin uptake; possibly, CmlA overproduction may
contribute to increase the intracellular concentration of spectinomycin.
The emergence of MDR is a threat to antibacterial treatments. However,
activation of MDR pumps could result in hypersensitivity to certain
antibiotics. Appropriate antibiotics could be used to offset the
prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, as shown from our
observation that spectinomycin is more efficient when CmlA is overexpressed.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We are indebted to Amos Oppenheim, Elena Bidnenko, Mary Berlin, and Hiroshi Matsuzawa for sending plasmids and strains. We thank Emmanuelle Binet, Christophe Goyon, Sandy Gruss, Sylvie Souès, and Bud Weiser for helpful discussions and warm support. We are grateful to Sandy Gruss for careful reading of the manuscript.
This work was supported in part by grant "ATIPE Microbiologie" from the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique and by grant "Aide à l'implantation de nouvelles équipes" from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratoire des Réseaux de Régulations, Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS/URA2225, bâtiment 400, F-91405 Orsay Cedex, France. Phone: (33) 1 69 15 70 16. Fax: (33) 1 69 15 66 78. E-mail: bouloc{at}infobiogen.fr.
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