Copper resistance in Legionella pneumophila: Role of genetic factors and host cells.

Autor: Cameron G; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec H9X 3V9, Canada; Centreau - Centre québécois de recherche sur la gestion de l'eau, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada., Faucher SP; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec H9X 3V9, Canada; Centreau - Centre québécois de recherche sur la gestion de l'eau, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada; Centre de Recherche en Infectiologie Porcine et Avicole (CRIPA), Université de Montréal, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada. Electronic address: sebastien.faucher2@mcgill.ca.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2024 Dec 12; Vol. 958, pp. 177943. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Dec 12.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177943
Abstrakt: Copper is frequently found in drinking water due to its presence in the natural environment and the widespread usage of copper pipes. This toxic metal has a well-known antimicrobial activity, an activity harnessed in copper‑silver ionization (CSI) to eliminate the opportunistic pathogen Legionella pneumophila from engineered water systems. Despite utilizing the antimicrobial properties of copper in Legionella control, little is known about how copper containing environments affect L.pneumophila populations. The goal of this study is to understand how L. pneumophila responds to copper within a hot water distribution system (HWDS) environment. To answer this question, different sequence types and regulatory mutants were exposed to copper to compare their survival. L. pneumophila isolates of 4 sequence types from 3 different HWDSs exhibited a wide diversity of phenotypes after copper stress. The ΔletA and ΔletS mutants were sensitive to copper, indicating that the LetAS two component system is important for copper resistance. Additionally, transmissive phase cultures were more resistant to copper than replicative phase cultures. Therefore, the regulation of entry into transmissive phase by the LetAS system is essential for L. pneumophila's ability to survive copper stress. In a water system, L. pneumophila replicates within eukaryotic hosts. When cocultured with the host ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis, L. pneumophila was more resistant to copper than when the bacteria were in a monoculture. No difference in L. pneumophila replication inside of hosts in cocultures with or without copper was observed. This result confirms that the presence of host cells protects L. pneumophila from copper stress.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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