The allele encoding the mycobacterial Erp protein affects lung disease in mice
| Autor: | Elisabeth Pivert, Brigitte Gicquel, Yann Bordat, Leila de Mendonça-Lima, Olivier Neyrolles, Aboubakar Maitournam, Chiara Recchi, Jean-Marc Reyrat |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2003 |
| Předmět: |
Genetics
Mice Inbred BALB C biology Mycobacterium smegmatis Immunology Mutant Virulence Membrane Proteins Mycobacterium tuberculosis biology.organism_classification Microbiology Mice Bacterial Proteins Virology Animals Female Trans-acting Allele Gene Mycobacterium leprae Tuberculosis Pulmonary Alleles Cells Cultured Mycobacterium |
| Zdroj: | Cellular microbiology. 5(1) |
| ISSN: | 1462-5814 |
| Popis: | Summary Erp (exported repetitive protein), also known as P36, Pirg and Rv3810, is a member of a mycobacteria- specific family of extracellular proteins. These pro- teins consist of three domains, the N- and C-terminal domains are similar in all mycobacterial species, how- ever, the central domain contains a repeated PGLTS module and differs considerably between species. The erp knockout mutant of Mycobacterium tubercu- losis displays very low levels of multiplication both in macrophage cell lines and in vivo in a mouse model of infection. The high interspecies variability of the central repeated region of the Erp protein led us to investigate whether these orthologous proteins were functionally equivalent in a mouse model of tubercu- losis. We expressed a gene fusion with the erp gene of Mycobacterium smegmatis , Mycobacterium leprae or M. tuberculosis in trans in an erp - M. tuberculosis mutant and found that these three alleles restored multiplication to similar levels in the spleen of infected mice. However, these alleles gave different levels of colonization in the lung, for the early time- points. Quantitative histological analyses of the lungs of infected animals showed that the nature of the erp allele strongly affected the number and the size of lung lesions, demonstrating the importance of sur- face determinants for virulence and tissue damage. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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