Acquisition of the Phosphate Transporter NptA Enhances Staphylococcus aureus Pathogenesis by Improving Phosphate Uptake in Divergent Environments. Infect Immun 2018 Jan;86(1)
Date
11/01/2017Pubmed ID
29084897Pubmed Central ID
PMC5736819DOI
10.1128/IAI.00631-17Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85039561566 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 19 CitationsAbstract
During infection, pathogens must obtain all inorganic nutrients, such as phosphate, from the host. Despite the essentiality of phosphate for all forms of life, how Staphylococcus aureus obtains this nutrient during infection is unknown. Differing from Escherichia coli, the paradigm for bacterial phosphate acquisition, which has two inorganic phosphate (Pi) importers, genomic analysis suggested that S. aureus possesses three distinct Pi transporters: PstSCAB, PitA, and NptA. While pitA and nptA are expressed in phosphate-replete media, expression of all three transporters is induced by phosphate limitation. The loss of a single transporter did not affect S. aureus However, disruption of any two systems significantly reduced Pi accumulation and growth in divergent environments. These findings indicate that PstSCAB, PitA, and NptA have overlapping but nonredundant functions, thus expanding the environments in which S. aureus can successfully obtain Pi Consistent with this idea, in a systemic mouse model of disease, loss of any one transporter did not decrease staphylococcal virulence. However, loss of NptA in conjunction with either PstSCAB or PitA significantly reduced the ability of S. aureus to cause infection. These observations suggest that Pi acquisition via NptA is particularly important for the pathogenesis of S. aureus While our analysis suggests that NptA homologs are widely distributed among bacteria, closely related less pathogenic staphylococcal species do not possess this importer. Altogether, these observations indicate that Pi uptake by S. aureus differs from established models and that acquisition of a third transporter enhances the ability of the bacterium to cause infection.
Author List
Kelliher JL, Radin JN, Grim KP, Párraga Solórzano PK, Degnan PH, Kehl-Fie TEAuthor
Jessica L. Kelliher PhD Assistant Professor in the Microbiology and Immunology department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AnimalsBacterial Proteins
Escherichia coli
Female
Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
Membrane Transport Proteins
Mice
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Phosphate Transport Proteins
Phosphates
Staphylococcal Infections
Staphylococcus aureus
