Mycobacterial Dormancy and Persistence: Molecular Mechanisms Controlling Stress Response, Survival and Adaptation
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MYCOBACTERIAL DORMANCY AND PERSISTENCE: MOLECULAR MECHANISMS CONTROLLING STRESS RESPONSE, SURVIVAL AND ADAPTATION CHIONH YOK HIAN B.Sc. Biological Science and Economics (1st Class Hons.) Nanyang Technology University A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF MICROBIOLOGY YONG LOO LIN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2015 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all sources of information which have been used in the thesis. This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university previously. __________________________ Chionh Yok Hian 24 June 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is said that the devil is in the details – fortunately, I know many angels. To my long-suffering supervisor, Professor Peter C. Dedon, who had to put up with countless (hours of) procrastination, (more) missed deadlines and (pages of) bad writings: Thank you! Never had I met someone more tireless, more patient, more sincere, more generous and more enthusiastic – on science, wine, and good food, in that order. Can I have a better mentor? I seriously doubt it. The past five years had been a joy and honor. To my co-supervisor, Associate Professor Sylvie Alonso, who is as tough as nails and as genuine as it gets. Ever supportive, ever focused, you try to make sense of what I’m doing even when I hardly “get it” myself. Thank you for your encouragement, your questions and your open door policy to a brash outsider who knew nothing. It seems de rigour for thesis authors to thank every laboratory member, past, present and future, for inspiration, assistance, and/or some casual reference or remark on the author’s work. I suppose that it helps – like a high school yearbook would – to remember the times we shared and to cut awkward (re)- introductory moments at future social events down to the minimum. So, on the off chance that this is helpful, I wish to thank the following people: Professors Ong Choon Nam and Pablo Bifani as members of my thesis committee for keeping me on my toes year after year. You might have noticed that many of your suggestions are incorporated into this thesis. (This assumes that you managed to find time off your busy schedules to read this). Dr. Megan E. McBee for her good sense, good cheer and even better advice on everything academic and non-academic – your son Tasman will grow up to be a lovable rascal, I’m sure. Drs. Clement Chan, Ramesh Indrakanti, John “Pete” Wishnok, Simon Chan, Kok Seong Lim, Erin Preswich, Wang Jin, Lü Haitou and Dan Su, for teaching me analytical chemistry (from scratch) with a healthy dose of patience. Clement, especially, for starting me off on the right track, and Dan for keeping me there by telling me about 5-oxyacetyl-uridine, a molecule which dominated a good third of my thesis. Drs. Michael Demott, Joy Pang, Aswin Mangerich, Yie Hou Lee, Cui Liang, Brandon Russell, Stefanine Keller, Bahar Edrissi, Vasileios Dendroulakis and Ms. Maggie Cai for sharing your knowledge and love on molecular biology, nucleotide chemistry, multivariate statistics, reagents, equipment, laboratory space, lunches, dinners, snacks and company; Drs. Watthanachai Jumpathong and Susovan Mahopatra for your accompaniment on our hour-long quests in the summer, autumn and winter of 2013 for tear-jerking Thai food. Though I’m unsure if our work on the endogenous generation of glyxoylate-DNA adducts in mycobacteria would ever see the light of day, I had fun working with you guys – honest! Chen Gu for being blunt and for co-writing papers with me. Fabian Hia for being an all-round awesome guy, none of the work presented herein would be possible without his due diligence; Bo Cao, Nick Davis and Jennifer Hu for being on the other end of late-night teleconferences and email correspondences. And Dr. Madhu S. Ravindran: I can only imagine how different this thesis would had turn out if you had not came along, wanting to set up Wayne cultures. Last but not least, Wenwei, Michelle, Vanessa, Julia, Emily, Regina, Annabelle, Weixin, Jowin, Jian Hang, Lili, Li Ching, Zarina, Aakansha, Huimin, Eshele and Sze Wai for absorbing me into the SA lab through some kind of uptake mechanism that borders upon sorcery. To my parents, I paraphrase P.G. Wodehouse, for without whose never- failing sympathy and encouragement this thesis would have been finished in half the time. I love you still. To my brother, Yok Teng, for without whose own excellent Ph.D. thesis as a reference, this thesis would have been finished in twice the time. I love you too. You know how it is; you open this thesis, flip to the acknowledgements, and find that, once again, the author has dedicated it to a family member or loved one. Well, not this time. This thesis is dedicated to you, dear reader, for being the raison d’etre for these words. Table of contents Page Summary i List of tables ii List of figures iii List of abbreviations vii Publications xii Selected presentations xiii 1. Background and Significance 1 1.2. Scope 1 1.3. Tuberculosis: etiology, epidemiology and pathophysiology 4 1.3.1. Disease burden of Mtb infections 4 1.3.2. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis is associated with 6 disease relapse 1.3.3. Development of antibiotic resistance in TB relapse 8 reflects disease pathology 1.3.4. Acquired antibiotic resistance 10 1.3.5. Innate antibiotic tolerance or phenotypic drug resistance 11 1.3.6. Regulation of stress responses in Mtb 15 1.4. Models for the study of Mtb dormancy and persistence in 17 vitro 1.4.1. The Wayne model for hypoxia-induced dormancy 18 1.4.2. Nutrient deprivation models for Mtb persistence 19 1.5. Control of gene expression in response to stress 21 1.5.1. RNA modifications – a well characterized but poorly 22 understood aspect of molecular biology 1.5.2. Known functions of tRNA modifications 24 1.5.3. Translation control of stress responses by tRNA 26 modifications 1.6. Thesis overview and research aims 30 1.7. References 32 2. Mycobacterial RNA isolation optimized for non-coding RNA: High fidelity isolation of 5S rRNA from Mycobacterium bovis BCG reveals novel post- 47 transcriptional processing and a complete spectrum of modified ribonucleosides 2.1 Abstract 47 2.2 Introduction 48 2.3 Material and methods 49 2.3.1. Bacterial cultures 49 2.3.2. Development of the RNA isolation method 50 2.3.3. HPLC purification of individual ncRNA species 52 2.3.4. Sequencing of BCG 5S rRNA 53 2.3.5. Analysis of mRNA by quantitative real-time polymerase 53 chain reaction (qPCR) 2.3.6. Identification and characterization of modified 54 ribonucleosides in BCG 5S rRNA 2.3.7. Statistical analysis 55 2.4. Results 55 2.4.1. Optimization of RNA isolation parameters 55 2.4.2. Qualitative assessment of the optimized ncRNA 57 isolation method 2.4.3. Application of the mycobacterial RNA isolation method 60 in isolating mRNA 2.4.4. Application of the mycobacterial RNA isolation method: Quantitative comparison of ncRNA species in non- 60 replicative and exponentially growing BCG 2.4.5. Sequence of BCG 5S rRNA 63 2.4.6. The spectrum of modified ribonucleosides in BCG 5S 64 rRNA 2.5. Discussion 64 2.6. Supplementary material 73 2.6.1 Supplementary figures 73 2.6.2. Supplementary tables 77 2.8. Acknowledgements 81 2.7. References 81 3. A multi-dimensional platform for the purification of non- 85 coding RNA species 3.1. Abstract 85 3.2. Introduction 85 3.3 Material and methods 87 3.3.1. Chemicals and reagents 87 3.3.2. Bacterial and mammalian cell culture 87 3.3.3. In vitro transcription of dengue viral RNA from plasmid 88 DNA template 3.3.4. Rodent infection with Plasmodium berghei and isolation 88 of schizont-infected murine reticulocytes 3.3.5. Ethics statement 89 3.3.6. Total RNA extraction 89 3.3.7. Size-exclusion chromatography of total RNA 90 3.3.8. Ion-pair reversed-phase chromatography of total RNA 91 3.3.9. Analysis of isolated RNA species 91 3.3.10. RiboGreen assay for species-specific fluorometric 92 responses 3.3.11. Detection and relative quantification of ribonucleosides from BCG tRNA by chromatography-coupled mass 92 spectrometry 3.3.12. MS2 Structural characterization of N6,N6- 93 dimethyladenosine in BCG tRNA 3.3.13. Data graphing and statistical analysis 94 3.4. Results 95 3.4.1. 1-D size exclusion chromatography of eukaryotic and 95 prokaryotic total RNA 3.4.2. 1-D ion-pair, reversed-phase chromatography for 97 complete resolution of small RNA species 3.4.3. 2-D SEC design and validation with total RNA from 99 Mycobacterium bovis BCG 3.4.4. Limitations of 2-D SEC 100 3.4.5. Application of 2-D SEC for isolation of Plasmodium 103 berghei ncRNA from infected reticulocytes 3.4.6. Fluorometric quantification of purified RNA 103 3.5. Discussion 105 3.6. Supplementary material 111 3.6.1 Supplementary figures 111 3.6.2. Supplementary Tables 119 3.8. Acknowledgements 121 3.7. References 121 4. Quantitative analysis of modified ribonucleoside by HPLC- coupled mass spectrometry reveals N6, N6- 125 dimethyladenosine as a novel tRNA modification in Mycobacterium bovis Bacille Calmette-Guérin 4.1. Abstract 125 4.2. Introduction 126 4.3. Material and methods 128 4.3.1. Reagents and instrumentation 128 4.3.2. Preparation of BCG culture media 129 4.3.3.