Intracellular phase for an extracellular bacterial pathogen: MgtC shows the way
Authors:Audrey Bernut1,#, Claudine Belon1, Chantal Soscia2, Sophie Bleves2, Anne-Béatrice Blanc-Potard1
doi: 10.15698/mic2015.09.227
Volume 2, pp. 353 to 355, published 13/08/2015.
1 Laboratoire de Dynamique des Interactions Membranaires Normales et Pathologiques, Université de Montpellier (DIMNP CNRS-UMR5235), Place Eugène Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 05, France.
2 CNRS & Aix-Marseille University, Laboratoire d’Ingénierie des Systèmes Macromoléculaires (UMR7255), IMM, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille cedex 20, France.
# Present address: Centre d’études d’agents Pathogènes et Biotechnologies pour la Santé (CPBS – FRE 3689), 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France.
Keywords:
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, MgtC, macrophage, magnesium, biofilm, zebrafish
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Please cite this article as:
Audrey Bernut, Claudine Belon, Chantal Soscia, Sophie Bleves, Anne-Béatrice Blanc-Potard (2015). Intracellular phase for an extracellular bacterial pathogen: MgtC shows the way. Microbial Cell: 353-355.
© 2015 Bernut et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an extracellular pathogen known to impair host phagocytic functions. However, our recent results identify MgtC as a novel actor in P. aeruginosa virulence, which plays a role in an intramacrophage phase of this pathogen. In agreement with its intracellular function, P. aeruginosa mgtC gene expression is strongly induced when the bacteria reside within macrophages. MgtC was previously known as a horizontally-acquired virulence factor important for multiplication inside macrophages in several intracellular bacterial pathogens. MgtC thus provides a singular example of a virulence determinant that subverts macrophages both in intracellular and extracellular pathogens. Moreover, we demonstrate that P. aeruginosa MgtC is required for optimal growth in Mg2+ deprived medium, a property shared by MgtC factors from intracellular pathogens and, under Mg2+ limitation, P. aeruginosa MgtC prevents biofilm formation. We propose that MgtC has a similar function in intracellular and extracellular pathogens, which contributes to macrophage resistance and fine-tune adaptation to the host in relation to the different bacterial lifestyles. MgtC thus appears as an attractive target for antivirulence strategies and our work provides a natural peptide as MgtC antagonist, which paves the way for the development of MgtC inhibitors.