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Journal of Bacteriology, May 2007, p. 3669-3673, Vol. 189, No. 9
0021-9193/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00002-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and Antimicrobial Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada,1 Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses, Public Health Agency of Canada, Guelph, ON, Canada,2 Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada3
Received 1 January 2007/ Accepted 9 February 2007
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The specific environmental context required for SPI-2 activation implied the existence of a repressing system to silence intracellular virulence genes in SPI-2 in the absence of an activating environmental signal. Because SPI-2 lacks an obvious negative regulator by sequence similarity to other repressors, we hypothesized that SPI-2 integrates with ancestral negative regulatory proteins to achieve appropriate genetic control. We found one repressor, YdgT, which affected the expression of SPI-2 genes and contributed to the contextual activation of virulence in animals (7). However, other unidentified repressors were likely involved because ydgT null mutants still repressed SPI-2 genes in LB medium. YdgT is a member of the Hha/YmoA family of small nucleoid-like proteins involved in gene regulation (8, 13, 16, 20). YmoA modulates the expression of Yersinia enterocolitica virulence factors, including Yop proteins, the YadA adhesin, and invasin (8, 11). Hha was originally shown to increase the cytoplasmic expression of hemolysin in Escherichia coli (18) and has also been shown to negatively regulate invasion genes in Salmonella (12) and virulence genes in the locus of enterocyte effacement in enterohemorrhagic E. coli (22). Heretofore, there has been no report on the role of Hha in SPI-2 gene expression. Here, we identify Hha as the major repressor that silences SPI-2 virulence genes prior to bacteria sensing an activating environmental cue consisting of low Mg2+, low PO43, and acidification. These data add important insight into the understanding of intracellular virulence gene regulation in Salmonella and make accessible new culture conditions and a genetic probe for examining this essential virulence determinant in Salmonella serovar Typhimurium.
Because the ydgT mutants created in our earlier work (7) still repressed intracellular virulence genes in SPI-2 when grown in LB medium, we hypothesized the existence of another repressor protein that contributed to SPI-2 gene regulation. We focused our attention on the small nucleoid-like protein Hha because of its amino acid similarity to YdgT and YmoA (7). To begin, we deleted hha from wild-type Salmonella serovar Typhimurium strain SL1344 and from a
ydgT strain to create single and double mutants, respectively (Table 1). Chromosomal deletions of hha were created using the
Red recombination method as described by Datsenko and Wanner (9). The primers for PCRs were designed to contain 5' end complementarity to the hha gene and 3' end complementarity to the FRT (Flp recognition target)-flanked antibiotic resistance cassettes of plasmids pKD3 and pKD4. The primer sequences used were as follows: hhaF, 5'-GCG TGT TCT CTA AAA AGT AAT GTA GCG TGA TTA ACG GTG TAG GCT GGA GCT GCT TCG-3'; and hhaR, 5'-CTT GTT AAA AAT TAT TAC AAT CAT AGG TAG AAT TTA TGT CTG ATA AAC CAT ATG AAT ATC CTC CTT A-3'. The resulting PCR products were purified, electroporated into Salmonella strains, and subjected to selection as described previously (9).
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TABLE 1. Strains used in this study
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FIG. 1. Deletion of hha increases SseB protein levels. Bacterial cultures (wild type [wt] and ydgT, hhaT, and ydgT hha mutants) were grown under SPI-2-inducing conditions in LPM (pH 5.8) (A) and under SPI-2-repressing conditions in LB broth (B) as described in the text. Bacterial cell lysates were probed by Western blot analysis for the SPI-2-encoded protein, SseB (top panels), and a control protein (intracellular DnaK) (bottom panels). (C) Complementation of hha deletion. Wild-type Salmonella serovar Typhimurium and the hha mutant were transformed with phha, carrying the full-length wild-type hha strain from an IPTG-inducible promoter. Strains were grown in LB and probed by Western blot analysis for SseB as described in the text. The data shown are representative of experiments performed three times.
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hha Salmonella serovar Typhimurium strains, and the strains were grown in LB as described above. The expression of the wild-type hha strain from the complementation plasmid prevented SseB accumulation from the
hha strain and also eliminated the low basal expression of SseB from wild-type Salmonella serovar Typhimurium (Fig. 1C), indicating that the deletion of hha was responsible for this overexpression phenotype.
In order to examine the transcriptional activity of the promoter controlling sseB, we next integrated into the chromosome a single-copy transcriptional fusion of the sseAB promoter to lacZ (PsseA::lacZ) by homologous recombination as described previously (6). Reporter strains were constructed in wild-type bacteria and ydgT, hha, and ydgT hha mutants, creating strains designated with PsseA::pPsseA-lacZ nomenclature. Reporter strains were inoculated into either LB or LPM (pH 5.8) to give an A600 of
0.05 and then incubated with shaking at 37°C for various times. Samples were removed at regular intervals for the determination of numbers of CFU, A600, and ß-galactosidase activity by using a chemiluminescence assay described previously (7). Relative light units of ß-galactosidase activity were measured using a top-reading plate luminometer (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA) after a 60-minute incubation of bacterial lysate and substrate. To facilitate direct comparisons between strains, ß-galactosidase activity was normalized to the optical density of the paired culture. Under SPI-2-inducing conditions (LPM at pH 5.8), the transcriptional activity of PsseA was detected from wild-type bacteria and ß-galactosidase activity from ydgT mutant bacteria was slightly increased compared to that from wild-type bacteria during the exponential phase of the growth cycle (Fig. 2A). When the experiment was conducted with hha mutants and with ydgT hha double mutants, ß-galactosidase activity was significantly higher in both mutant strains at all time points examined (Fig. 2A). Under these conditions, normalized ß-galactosidase activity reached significantly greater maximal levels in strains deleted for hha. To further examine the transcriptional activity of SPI-2 under conditions that normally repress SPI-2 gene expression, we repeated the ß-galactosidase activity assays using strains grown in LB under SPI-2-repressing conditions. As expected, sseA promoter activity was low in wild-type Salmonella and in ydgT mutants during the exponential phase of growth (Fig. 2B). As cultures plateau into stationary phase, the transcriptional activity of SPI-2 promoters increases, but this expression is not dependent on the acidification of the culture medium and thus represents a different mode of activation, unlike classical SPI-2 gene expression (6). In
hha and
ydgT
hha strains, ß-galactosidase activity was 16-fold and 15-fold higher than in the wild-type strain, respectively, at 2 h after subculture (Fig. 2B) and remained significantly higher throughout log phase. Remarkably, the level of ß-galactosidase activity in log-phase hha and hha ydgT mutant strains in noninducing growth medium was greater than the level of activity observed for wild-type Salmonella grown in SPI-2-inducing medium. Next, to examine whether the increase in sseAB promoter activity from
hha strains required the response regulator, SsrB, we deleted hha from a strain lacking ssrB to generate an ssrB hha double mutant. We integrated the chromosomal PsseA::pPsseA-lacZ reporter into this strain and examined the ß-galactosidase activity of the SPI-2 promoter as described above. The deletion of ssrB eliminated the increase in ß-galactosidase activity from the hha strain (Fig. 2C), indicating that SsrB was required for this transcriptional activity. As expected, the ß-galactosidase activities of both wild-type and ssrB mutant Salmonella serovar Typhimurium strains were low (Fig. 2C). Together, these experiments demonstrated that the deletion of hha results in the overproduction of SPI-2-encoded SseB protein and the transcriptional activation of the sseAB promoter under classically noninducing conditions where wild-type Salmonella represses this expression. This increase in promoter activity requires SsrB since an ssrB hha double mutant shows transcriptional activity similar to those of wild-type bacteria and an ssrB mutant under these conditions. Importantly, the identification of Hha as the major repressor of SPI-2 gene expression makes available facile culture conditions under which to examine the SPI-2 regulon and identify potentially new genes that coregulate with this virulence system.
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FIG. 2. Transcriptional activity of the SPI-2 effector operon promoter (PsseA) is derepressed upon deletion of hha and requires SsrB for activity. The ß-galactosidase activity of a chromosomal PsseA::lacZ reporter was examined in the indicated strains during growth under (A) SPI-2-inducing conditions (LPM at pH 5.8) and (B) noninducing conditions (LB). The data are means and standard deviations (SD) from triplicate determinations from two independent experiments. (C) The ß-galactosidase activity of a chromosomal PsseA::lacZ reporter was examined in wild-type Salmonella (wt), in mutants lacking the response regulator, ssrB, or the repressor, hha, and in a double mutant lacking both ssrB and hha. The data are the means and SD from triplicate determinations from two experiments. P was <0.001 for the hha strain compared to the wild type. RLU, relative light units; OD600, optical density at 600 nm.
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107 CFU of a mixed inoculum of wild-type Salmonella and the mutants indicated. All animal procedures were approved by the McMaster University Animal Care Committee and were in accordance with guidelines set by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. Competitive indices (CI) for the spleen and liver of infected mice were calculated at 72 h postinfection by using the following equation: CI = (mutant/wild type)output/(mutant/wild type)input. The mean CI for the spleen and liver for the hha mutant were 0.125 (P = 0.02) and 0.0151 (P < 0.0001), respectively, indicating that the hha mutant was significantly attenuated compared to wild-type bacteria (Fig. 3). This level of attenuation was similar to that observed previously for single ydgT mutants at the same time point (7). However, the deletion of both ydgT and hha reduced the virulence of the double mutant by 6 orders of magnitude, producing mean CI values for the spleen and liver of 2.63 x 106 (P < 0.0001) and 3.16 x 106 (P < 0.0001), respectively. These data support our previously articulated notion (7) that the negative regulation of virulence genes is a key evolutionary strategy that is essential for pathogen virulence. However, further research of the extent to which SPI-2 deregulation contributes to this attenuation is required.
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FIG. 3. Competitive infections in mice. Mice were infected with a mixed inoculum of wild-type Salmonella serovar Typhimurium (wt) and either an hha mutant (left) or an hha ydgT double mutant (right). The CI for the hha strain and ydgT hha strain were determined for the spleen and liver at 72 h postinfection. Each data point represents one animal, and horizontal bars indicate geometric means. CI for hha/wt, P = 0.021 (spleen) and P = 0.001 (liver); CI for ydgT hha/wt, P < 0.0001 for spleen and liver.
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In addition to identifying a major regulatory node controlling intracellular virulence of Salmonella, this study draws attention to highly accessible culture conditions and genetic mutants in which to examine SPI-2 regulation and the expanded regulon coexpressed with the SPI-2 type III secretion system. In addition, the hha mutant and hha ydgT double mutant we describe are novel genetic probes of an essential virulence pathway in Salmonella, facilitating a detailed examination of genetic interactions between virulence gene repressors and transcriptional activators that collectively control the virulence behavior of this pathogen. We believe that the seemingly diametric actions of activators and repressors sculpt the virulence gene program during the evolution of bacterial pathogenesis, which is then fine-tuned by using multiple regulatory inputs for the optimal colonization of host niches.
These data support the notion that both positive regulators and repressors of virulence genes are crucial for the control of bacterial pathogenesis in animals. In the case of Salmonella serovar Typhimurium, the integration of a two-component regulatory system acquired by horizontal gene transfer (SsrA-SsrB) with ancestral repressors such as YdgT and Hha is a salient feature controlling the virulent behavior of the pathogen during the infection of host animals. Thus, such regulators would seem to be befitting targets for new anti-infectives that upset the highly coordinated expression of virulence traits in Salmonella and likely other pathogens. Realizing the therapeutic potential of targeting virulence gene regulators stands to bridge a widening innovation gap in anti-infective targets and to revolutionize our approach to fighting pathogens in human and animal medicine.
This work was supported by a grant to B.K.C. from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Infrastructure support for the Coombes laboratory was provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada and McMaster University.
Published ahead of print on 16 February 2007. ![]()
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