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Characterization of Four Type IV Pilin Homologues in Stigmatella Aurantiaca DSM17044 by Heterologous Expression in Myxococcus Xanthus

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Characterization of Four Type IV Pilin Homologues in Stigmatella Aurantiaca DSM17044 by Heterologous Expression in Myxococcus Xanthus Characterization of Four Type IV Pilin Homologues in Stigmatella aurantiaca DSM17044 by Heterologous Expression in Myxococcus xanthus Zaigao Tan☯, Haoming Li☯, Hongwei Pan, Xiuwen Zhou, Xin Liu, Ningning Luo, Wei Hu*, Yuezhong Li State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology, School of Life Science, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China Abstract As prokaryotic models for multicellular development, Stigmatella aurantiaca and Myxococcus xanthus share many similarities in terms of social behaviors, such as gliding motility. Our current understanding of myxobacterial grouped- cell motilities comes mainly from the research on M. xanthus, which shows that filamentous type IV pili (TFP), composed of type IV pilin (also called PilA protein) subunits, are the key apparatus for social motility (S-motility). However, little is known about the pilin protein in S. aurantiaca. We cloned and sequenced four genes (pilASa1~4) from S. aurantiaca DSM17044 that are homologous to pilAMx (pilA gene in M. xanthus DK1622). The homology and similarities among PilASa proteins and other myxobacterial homologues were systematically analyzed. To determine their potential biological functions, the four pilASa genes were expressed in M. xanthus DK10410 (ΔpilAMx), which did not restore S-motility on soft agar or EPS production to host cells. After further analysis of the motile behaviors in a methylcellulose solution, the M. xanthus strains were categorized into three types. YL6101, carrying pilASa1, and YL6104, carrying pilASa4, produced stable but unretractable surface pili; YL6102, carrying pilASa2, produced stable surface pili and exhibited reduced TFP-dependent motility in methylcellulose; YL6103, carrying pilASa3, produced unstable surface pili. Based on these findings, we propose that pilASa2 might be responsible for the type IV pilin production involved in group motility in S. aurantiaca DSM17044. After examining the developmental processes, it was suggested that the expression of PilASa4 protein might have positive effects on the fruiting body formation of M. xanthus DK10410 cells. Moreover, the formation of fruiting body in M. xanthus cells with stable exogenous TFPSa were compensated by mixing them with S. aurantiaca DSM17044 cells. Our results shed some light on the features and functions of type IV pilin homologues in S. aurantiaca. Citation: Tan Z, Li H, Pan H, Zhou X, Liu X, et al. (2013) Characterization of Four Type IV Pilin Homologues in Stigmatella aurantiaca DSM17044 by Heterologous Expression in Myxococcus xanthus. PLoS ONE 8(9): e75105. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075105 Editor: Catherine A. Brissette, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, United States of America Received May 27, 2013; Accepted August 9, 2013; Published September 18, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Tan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was financially supported by the Chinese Natural Science Foundation Grants 30870020 (to W.H.), 30825001 and 31130004 (to Y.L.), Shandong Natural Science Foundation Grant ZR2012CM003 (to W.H.) and SDU Innovation Grant 2012TS007 (to W. H.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected] ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. Introduction antigens, are known to be essential for S-motility [5,6,7,8,9]. Among them, TFP act as molecular engines to enable S- Myxobacteria belong to a branch of intriguing prokaryotes motility, which are composed of thousands of protein subunits recognized for their complex social behaviors [1]. A group of called type IV pilin (or the PilA protein) [6,10]. During S-motility, myxobacterial cells, including cells from Myxococcus xanthus TFP function by extending at one of the cell poles, attaching to and Stigmatella aurantiaca, can crawl in swarms on solid the solid surfaces of the substratum or another cell, and then surfaces, cooperatively prey on environmental macromolecules retracting to pull the cell forward [10,11,12,13,14]. To achieve or microbial cells, and accumulate at a center to form fruiting the cycles of extension and retraction, pilin proteins are bodies when food is exhausted [2,3]. Our current assembled into polar filaments mediated by the ATPase PilB, understanding of myxobacterial social cell behaviors comes and the extracellular TFP are disassembled into single subunits mainly from research on M. xanthus, which shows that social with the assistance of the ATPase PilT [13,15]. In addition to motility (S-motility) plays a fundamental role in these processes being the key apparatus for S-motility, TFP also play divergent [4,5]. Three constituents, i.e., type four pili (TFP), extracellular roles in other physiological aspects of M. xanthus. Extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) O- TFP provides proximity signals to the Dif chemosensory PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75105 Four type IV Pilin Homologues in S. aurantiaca pathway to modulate EPS production [16], and the specific different conditions, PCR using the primer pair Stig pilA-5-F cellular pilin localization is required to maintain the normal and -R (Table 1) did not result in any specific products (data amount of secreted EPS [17]. Moreover, the TFP apparatus not shown). has been proposed to be involved in plasmid natural After sequence alignment (Figure 1A), four PilASa proteins transformation in M. xanthus [18]. from S. aurantiaca DSM17044 were found to share homology S. aurantiaca and M. xanthus are both in the suborder with the type IV pilin PilAMx from M. xanthus DK1622. In Cystobacterineae of Myxococcales [1]. They appear very particular, the N-terminal sequences (1~43 residues) of the five similar to each other in terms of social behaviors and both proteins are well conserved, which is consistent with the finding serve as prokaryotic models for multicellular development [19]. that the first 28 residues of mature pilin are highly conserved While the morphology of fruiting bodies varies, e.g., M. xanthus among a variety of bacterial species [12,25,26]. Moreover, an fruiting bodies are haystack-shaped and S. aurantiaca N-terminal α-helix has been identified in all crystal structures of elaborate fruiting bodies that consist of tree-like stalks bearing type IV pilins, e.g., PilA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and PilE several spore-filled sporangioles at their tops [1], the genetic in Neisseria gonorrhoeae [25,26,27,28,29], which is packed in programs for fruiting body formation and associated the filamentous TFP core [29]. As shown in Figure 1B, the characteristics of the two species are very similar [20]. Unlike simulated three-dimensional conformations of PilA and PilA M. xanthus, relatively little is known about the motility in S. Mx Sa aurantiaca. S. aurantiaca and M. xanthus both require calcium proteins all exhibit spoon-like structures, in which the highly ions for gliding [21], and inhibitors of protein synthesis prevent apolar N-terminal residues form an extended α-helical both the motility in S. aurantiaca and S-motility in M. xanthus secondary structure. Interestingly, PilAMx and PilASa1, 2, 4 proteins [21]. Furthermore, energy-dependent cohesion and motility are all show a kink region in the α-helix while PilASa3 has an almost suggested to be related phenomena in S. aurantiaca [21,22], straight α-helical domain (Figure 1B), which may be due to the which is consistent with the finding in M. xanthus that EPS is difference in their primary structures of residues 22~27 (Figure involved in both cohesion and S-motility [9,23]. Despite these 1A). known similarities between the motility in S. aurantiaca and M. In the alignment (Figure 1A), the C-terminal sequences of xanthus, the features of the pilin protein, potentially the key the five proteins are variable, and the low-score segments are component in grouped-cell motility, have not been investigated mostly in PilASa3 protein sequence. In the putative structures in S. aurantiaca. (Figure 1B), the C-terminal globular domain were observed in Strain DSM17044 is the type strain of the S. aurantiaca all five proteins, which is believed to be exposed to the outer species [24] and is closely related to another lab strain of S. surface of TFP and involved in the biological functions of TFP aurantiaca, DW4/3-1. In this study, four genes homologous to [30,31]. It was also noticed that approximately 20 residues on the pilA gene in M. xanthus were cloned from S. aurantiaca the C-terminus of all five proteins exhibited random folding, DSM17044, and subsequently expressed in M. xanthus cells to which might be because this part of the sequence was missing characterize their products. The motility and development- in the models of the 3D structure prediction, e.g., PilA in P. related phenotypes of M. xanthus cells carrying different S. aeruginosa and PilE in N. gonorrhoeae. Indeed, a previous aurantiaca pilA homologues were systematically investigated. study showed that the sequence of PilA was at least 17 The results obtained in this study could help to understand the Mx residues longer than the pilin from P. aeruginosa or N. potential biological functions of the type IV pilin homologues in gonorrhoeae
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