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Journal of Bacteriology, January 2001, p. 763-767, Vol. 183, No. 2
Department of Microbiology, University of
Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602,1 and
Department of Biology, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio
45496-23202
Received 17 July 2000/Accepted 16 October 2000
Pseudomonas aeruginosa translocates over solid surfaces
by a type IV pilus-dependent form of multicellular motility known as
twitching. We wondered whether cells utilize endogenous factors to
organize twitching, and we purified from wild-type cells a lipid that
caused directed movement. Wild-type P. aeruginosa, but not
a pilJ pilus-deficient mutant, showed biased movement up
gradients of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) established in agar. Activity was related to the fatty acid composition of the lipid, as two
synthetic PE species, dilauroyl and dioleoyl PE, were capable of
directing P. aeruginosa motility while many other species
were inactive. P. aeruginosa PE did not contain either
laurate or oleate, implying that the native attractant species contains
different fatty acids. Uniform concentrations of PE increased cell
velocity, suggesting that chemokinesis may be at least partly
responsible for directed movement. We speculate that PE-directed
twitching motility may be involved in biofilm formation and pathogenesis.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is
a prevalent contaminant of ventilators and catheters, a common cause of
nosocomial infections, and an opportunistic pathogen: lung infections
with this organism are a leading cause of mortality in both cystic
fibrosis and AIDS patients (27). The aggressiveness and
persistence of this organism may be attributed to the formation of
biofilm microcolonies which protect the component individuals and
concentrate virulence factors (19). Recent studies have
indicated that P. aeruginosa biofilm formation requires
intercellular signaling, and coordinated motility has been implicated
in the proper organization of three-dimensional, mushroom-shaped
structures within the biofilm (7, 9, 22).
P. aeruginosa swims rapidly in liquid by means of flagella,
and during biofilm formation swimming motility is involved in initial
location and adherence to solid surfaces (22). Once attached to a surface, P. aeruginosa moves by the
flagellum-independent surface motility known as twitching
(6). Twitching cells move linearly along their long axis
and are motile only in large groups (24). Twitching may be
powered by retraction of type IV pili (20), and mutants
defective in pilus biosynthesis genes lack twitching motility
(21). Interestingly, mutations resulting in the loss of
pili have also been identified in genes encoding homologs of the
enteric Che chemotaxis proteins (8). In Escherichia coli, these proteins are essential for oriented movement within chemical gradients, suggesting that twitching motility may be chemically regulated. Twitching is absolutely essential for biofilm formation (22).
While directed movement in any surface motile organism is poorly
understood, a chemoattractant has been discovered in the gliding
bacterium Myxococcus xanthus (18). M. xanthus, a nonpathogenic soil bacterium, also forms a biofilm that
requires both cell-cell signaling and surface motility
(25). Gliding motility shares many features with twitching
motility: movement is along the long axis of the cell, occurs in cell
groups, and is dependent on the presence of type IV pili
(16). M. xanthus cells migrate up gradients of
phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) purified from their own cell membranes,
and cells may secrete or otherwise present this chemical to neighboring
cells in order to orchestrate group movement (18). The
extensive similarities between P. aeruginosa and M. xanthus surface motility prompted us to search for an endogenous
lipid produced by P. aeruginosa that functioned as a
twitching chemoeffector.
Twitching motility.
In order to demonstrate twitching
motility, P. aeruginosa PAO1 was grown to late log phase in
L broth (10 g of tryptone, 5 g of yeast extract, and 5 g of
NaCl per liter) and resuspended to 5 × 109 cells/ml
in India ink-MOPS buffer {10 mM
3-(N-morpholino)propanesulfonic acid [pH 7.6], 8 mM
MgSO4, 10% India ink}. One microliter of the cell
suspension was spotted onto TPM agar (10 mM Tris HCl [pH 7.6], 8 mM
MgSO4, 1 mM
KHPO4-KH2PO4 buffer [pH 7.6],
1.5% Bacto agar) and incubated at 37°C for 24 h. The India ink
absorbed to the agar surface and served as a reference point for the
original inoculum. After 24 h, a halo of cells with a rough edge
formed around the origin of the colony, suggesting that P. aeruginosa was capable of twitching at a surface-air interface
(Fig. 1a). Zones of motility were
measured using a Leitz light microscope at a magnification of ×100
with an ocular micrometer. Under these conditions, expansion of
unstimulated swarms occurred at a rate of 31 µm/h.
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.2.763-767.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa Exhibits Directed
Twitching Motility Up Phosphatidylethanolamine Gradients
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FIG. 1.
P. aeruginosa biased twitching motility up PE
gradients. Wild-type PAO1 P. aeruginosa (a and b) and a
pilJ mutant (c and d) were spotted within mock gradients
generated with chloroform (a and c) or PE gradients generated with 10 µg of PE purified from PAO1 in chloroform (b and d). Scale bar = 1 mm.
Purification and identification of twitching chemoeffectors. A hydrophobic extract of P. aeruginosa PAO1 was prepared according to the guidelines of Bligh and Dyer to determine whether P. aeruginosa makes chemicals that effect twitching motility (4). A volume of 3.75 ml of methanol-chloroform (2:1) was added to 0.4 g of cells (wet weight) of late-log-phase P. aeruginosa PAO1 and was vortexed for 1 h. The suspension was centrifuged at 10,000 × g for 5 min and the supernatant was saved. The pellet was then reextracted with 4.75 ml of methanol-chloroform-water (2:1:0.8) and centrifuged again, and the supernatants were combined. Volumes of 2.5 ml of chloroform and 2.5 ml of water were added to the combined supernatants, vortexed, and centrifuged to separate the chloroform and aqueous layers. The chloroform layer containing hydrophobic material was collected and dried under nitrogen in a preweighed tube. The mass of the residue was determined and the residue was resuspended in chloroform.
The hydrophobic extract was used to create gradients in agar. A total of 100 µg of the extract was dried onto a 3-mm diameter Whatman no. 1 filter paper disk and placed on TPM agar. A disk with solvent alone served as a negative control. The plate was incubated at 32°C for 24 h to generate a gradient, after which P. aeruginosa cells, prepared as for the motility assay, were spotted 3 to 5 mm from the disk. Colonies spotted near the control disk produced uniform halos, but colonies near the disk containing extract migrated a distance twofold farther toward the disk than away from it (data not shown). The preferential motility suggested that P. aeruginosa contained an endogenous, hydrophobic twitching chemoeffector. To identify the active molecules, the extract was fractionated by silica gel affinity chromatography (12). A total of 20 mg of extract in hexane-methyl tert-butyl ether (200:3) was loaded on a 2-g column of silica gel (Supelco) that had been washed with hexane. The column was then serially eluted with 12 ml of each solvent listed in Table 1. Each fraction was dried under nitrogen, weighed, and resuspended in chloroform. Cells migrated four- and threefold farther up gradients generated when 20 µg each of fractions 5 and 6, respectively, was spotted directly on the agar surface (Table 1). No biased motility was observed with any other fraction, regardless of concentration.
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Mechanism of PE-directed movement.
The pilJ mutant
showed no preferential migration in the presence of purified PE (Fig.
1d). As the pilJ mutant is fully proficient in
flagellum-mediated swimming motility, we concluded that directed movement to PE on surfaces requires twitching motility
(8). We considered two possible explanations for the
PE-dependent directed movement. Either PE could act as a lubricant to
passively facilitate twitching motility, or PE could be a transduced
stimulus mediated by a dedicated perception system to regulate motor
output. The simplest way to address both possibilities was to determine
the specificity of the PE response. One might expect that the
surfactant properties of PE might be less dependent on the fatty acid
side chains than is expected for a transduced stimulus. Six chemically synthesized PE species with different fatty acid side chains were tested to determine the specificity of the motility response. Only dilauroyl (di-C12:0) and dioleoyl
(di-C18:1
9c) PE induced directed motility, suggesting a
significant degree of chemical specificity (Fig.
2). Because PE purified from P. aeruginosa likely contained a wide variety of chemical species,
fatty acid analysis was conducted on PE purified from PAO1 (Microbial
ID, Inc.) (Table 2). The two active
synthetic chemicals cannot account for the activity of the extract,
because the extract lacked both laurate and oleate under the growth
conditions used here. Nonetheless, the specificity of the response
argues against a passive mechanism for PE and favors the involvement of
signal transduction.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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This work was supported by grant MCB9601077 from the NSF and a Grant-in-Aid of Research from the National Academy of Sciences through Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, 527 Biological Sciences Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Phone: (706) 542-2681. Fax: (706) 542-2674. E-mail: shimkets{at}arches.uga.edu.
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