Academic literature on the topic 'Bacterial ghosts'

ABSTRACT Bacterial ghosts are empty cell envelopes, which may be generated by the controlled expression of the PhiX174 lysis gene E in gram-negative bacteria to obtain vaccine candidates. We describe here the application of this technology to Helicobacter pylori. The lysis gene cassette was cloned into an Escherichia coli-Helicobacter pylori shuttle vector and introduced into an H. pylori recipient strain by bacterial conjugation. Temperature induction of the lysis gene cassette revealed a quantitative killing of the H. pylori culture without induction of lysis-resistant bacteria. Biochemical and transmission electron microscopic studies identified structurally intact H. pylori. Prophylactic oral vaccination experiments using these H. pylori ghosts in the BALB/c mouse model showed a significant reduction of the bacterial load in the ghost group, as measured by a quantitative bacterial reisolation procedure. Ten of 10 and 5 of 10 mice were protected, respectively, without the use of a mucosal adjuvant. Coadministration of ghosts with cholera toxin as mucosal adjuvant resulted in a complete protection of 10 of 10 and 8 of 8 mice against H. pylori challenge, with three animals showing a sterile immunity.

ABSTRACTBacterial ghosts are empty cell envelopes of Gram-negative bacteria that can be used as vehicles for antigen delivery. Ghosts are generated by releasing the bacterial cytoplasmic contents through a channel in the cell envelope that is created by the controlled production of the bacteriophage ϕX174 lysis protein E. While ghosts possess all the immunostimulatory surface properties of the original host strain, they do not pose any of the infectious threats associated with live vaccines. Recently, we have engineered theEscherichia coliautotransporter hemoglobin protease (Hbp) into a platform for the efficient surface display of heterologous proteins in Gram-negative bacteria, HbpD. Using theMycobacterium tuberculosisvaccine target ESAT6 (early secreted antigenic target of 6 kDa), we have explored the application of HbpD to decorateE. coliandSalmonellaghosts with antigens. The use of different promoter systems enabled the concerted production of HbpD-ESAT6 and lysis protein E. Ghost formation was monitored by determining lysis efficiency based on CFU, the localization of a set of cellular markers, fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, and electron microscopy. Hbp-mediated surface display of ESAT6 was monitored using a combination of a protease accessibility assay, fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry and (immuno-)electron microscopy. Here, we show that the concerted production of HbpD and lysis protein E inE. coliandSalmonellacan be used to produce ghosts that efficiently display antigens on their surface. This system holds promise for the development of safe and cost-effective vaccines with optimal intrinsic adjuvant activity and exposure of heterologous antigens to the immune system.

ABSTRACT Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is a bacterial pathogen that is associated with several life-threatening diseases for humans. The combination of protein E-mediated cell lysis to produce EHEC ghosts and staphylococcal nuclease A to degrade DNA was used for the development of an oral EHEC vaccine. The lack of genetic material in the oral EHEC bacterial-ghost vaccine abolished any hazard of horizontal gene transfer of resistance genes or pathogenic islands to resident gut flora. Intragastric immunization of mice with EHEC ghosts without the addition of any adjuvant induced cellular and humoral immunity. Immunized mice challenged at day 55 showed 86% protection against lethal challenge with a heterologous EHEC strain after single-dose oral immunization and 93.3% protection after one booster at day 28, whereas the controls showed 26.7% and 30% survival, respectively. These results indicate that it is possible to develop an efficacious single-dose oral EHEC bacterial-ghost vaccine.

Bacteriocins are functionally diverse toxins produced by most microbes and are potent antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) for bacterial ghosts as next generation vaccines. Here, we first report that the AMPs secreted from Lactobacillus taiwanensis effectively form ghosts of pathogenic bacteria and are identified as diverse bacteriocins, including novel ones. In detail, a cell-free supernatant from L. taiwanensis exhibited antimicrobial activities against pathogenic bacteria and was observed to effectively cause cellular lysis through pore formation in the bacterial membrane using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The treatment of the cell-free supernatant with proteinase K or EDTA proved that the antimicrobial activity is mediated by AMPs, and the purification of AMPs using Sep-Pak columns indicated that the cell-free supernatant includes various amphipathic peptides responsible for the antimicrobial activity. Furthermore, the whole-genome sequencing of L. taiwanensis revealed that the strain has diverse bacteriocins, confirmed experimentally to function as AMPs, and among them are three novel bacteriocins, designated as Tan 1, Tan 2, and Tan 3. We also confirmed, using SEM, that Tan 2 effectively produces bacterial ghosts. Therefore, our data suggest that the bacteriocins from L. taiwanensis are potentially useful as a critical component for the preparation of bacterial ghosts.

This study was designed to evaluate the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of two VP1 chimeric antigens of bacterial ghosts. Inoculation of the two VP1 chimeric antigens of bacterial ghosts into BALB/c mice markedly elicited humoral and mucosal immune responses. The specific antibodies induced by the chimeric ghosts protected mice not only against the virus that causes hand-foot-and-mouth disease but also against E. coli O157:H7 bacterial infection. In comparison with the negative control, immunization with the chimeric ghosts protected mice against two LD50 hand-foot-and-mouth disease viral infection. In addition, this specific immunity also protected the pups of pregnant mice immunized with the VP1 chimeric antigens of bacterial ghosts against 20 MLD E. coli O157:H7 infection. Taken together, the results of this study verify for the first time that the VP1 chimeric antigens of bacterial ghosts are target candidates for a new type of vaccine against hand-foot-and-mouth disease. Additionally, this vaccine strategy also elicited a stronger immune response against E. coli O157:H7.

The binding of outer membrane (OM) ghosts derived from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 492c to human buccal epithelial cells (BECs) was examined. Electron microscopic examination of the binding of OM ghosts to BECs revealed direct OM ghost–BEC interaction. Equilibrium analysis of the binding of OM ghosts to trypsinized BECs employing the Langmuir adsorption isotherm indicated the number of binding sites (iV) to be 1.3 × 10−1 μg protein per BEC with an apparent association constant (Ka) of 3.4 × 10−2 mL/μg protein. The Langmuir analysis of binding of OM ghosts to untrypsinized BECs was complex, suggesting two possible classes of receptors, a high affinity–low copy number class (Ka, 1.8 × 10−2 mL/μg protein; N, 8.6 × 10−5 μg protein per BEC) and a low affinity – high copy number class(Afa, 3.7 × 10−3 mL/μg protein; N, 9.2 × 10−4 μg protein per BEC). Sugar inhibition studies incorporating D-galactose enhanced binding to each BEC type. N-Acetylneuraminic acid and N-acetyl-glucosamine both enhanced binding of OM ghosts to untrypsinized BECs, while inhibiting binding to trypsinized BECs. D-Arabinose inhibited binding to both BEC types. Binding of OM ghosts to both BEC types was greatly inhibited by D-fucose, while L-fucose only greatly inhibited binding to untrypsinized BECs. These sugar inhibition data demonstrated a difference in the binding of OM ghosts to trypsinized and untrypsinized BECs and possibly reveal the nature of the receptor(s), free of possible bacterial metabolic effects. These data indicated that OM ghosts from 492c appear to bind to BECs in a similar manner to the intact bacteria and represent a simple model system to study the adhesion of P. aeruginosa to BECs.

Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) is a pestilent infection affecting upwards of 90 million people worldwide. An efficacious vaccine is needed to control the morbidities and rising healthcare cost associated with genital CT infection. We have established that protection against chlamydia infection parallels with a high frequency of T helper Type 1 cells and the associated antibodies. The current study focuses on the induction of innate immune responses involved during Chlamydia infection by a Vibrio cholera ghost-based (VCG) vaccine vector. THP-1 cells were used for dose and kinetic experiments. HeLa cells were used for infectivity assays. Based on preliminary studies, we hypothesized that the induction of immune responses by a VCG-based vaccine involves multiple innate immune signaling. Multiplex assay was used to measure T helper Type I and Type II cytokine secretion by THP-1 monocytes (Mn) or macrophages (Mϕ). Immunostimulatory cytokine secretion was significant when both cell morphologies were pulsed with VCG or VCG/murine splenocytes. We concluded that this secretion was significant enough to compliment that which would be secreted when THP-1 cells are pulsed with Chlamydia elementary bodies alone, enhancing the innate immune response during infection. Cellular supernatants (conditioned media) containing Th1-type and Th2-type cytokines were used to culture Chlamydia-infected HeLa cell monolayers. Infected HeLa monolayers cultured in the conditioned media were significantly less infected (968 IFUs) versus HeLa monolayers cultured in Earle’s minimum essential media (16,486 IFUs; p<0.001). We concluded that factors contained in conditioned media prevent and/or significantly reduce infection by Chlamydia and the development of inclusion forming units.

One of the major challenges of vaccine development is the conservation of immunogenicity and protective efficacy through the stages of design, production, formulation and delivery. The critical issue is that how and in what form an antigen is taken up by antigen presenting cells for proteolytic processing and presentation to the immune system bound to MHC can have dramatic effects on the activation of Th cells to drive clonal responses and induction of immunological memory. Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is a pathogenic commensal of the human respiratory tract that causes diseases with enormous socioeoconomic burdens. There is no licensed vaccine, although the potential for vaccination with outer membrane components to reduce the incidence of disease caused by NTHi has recently been demonstrated in clinical trials. The issue of immunomodulation was explored in this thesis in the context of the further evaluation of a leading NTHi vaccine candidate, the outer membrane protein OMP26. The efficacy of recombinant OMP26 (rOMP26) against NTHi challenge has been previously demonstrated in mice, rats and chinchillas. In rats, efficacy was shown to be restricted to the precursor form (containing the signal peptide) and not the mature form of rOMP26. The immunodulatory effects of changes to the rOMP26 structure were further investigated in this thesis. A range of structural variants of rOMP26 were constructed in view of reducing extraneous plasmid-derived sequence from the antigen and to introduce a unique cysteine residue as a potential conjugate site for multivalent vaccine development (Chapter 2). It was demonstrated that minor structural changes to rOMP26 such as the addition, deletion, modification or relative positioning of a single amino acid or bulky group, designed to increase the efficiency of production or introduce (cysteine) conjugation sites, altered the expression of the protein in E. coli and the immunogenicity in Balb/C mice. Furthermore, in contradiction to the published report (El-Adhami et al. 1999) and a new study in rats (Chapter 3), there was no positive effect of the signal peptide in mice, with precursor and mature forms of rOMP26 equally immunogenic (Chapter 2). Following confirmation of the need to retain the signal peptide for the immunogenicity of rOMP26 in rats, a precursor form (rOMP26VTAL) in which the conserved n-region of the signal peptide was deleted, and shown to reduce the efficiency of the cleavage of the signal peptide by signal peptidase during protein overexpression in E. coli (Chapter 3). Not only did this deletion result in an increase the yield and stability of the purified precursor protein, but rOMP26VTAL was highly immunogenic and enhanced the clearance of NTHi from the lungs of challenged rats. The potential for signal peptides to be exploited as an immune-enhancing moiety in a proteinaceous vaccine is discussed. Following the development of rOMP26VTAL as a production optimised variant of rOMP26, the next step was to test the feasibility of rOMP26VTAL as a component of a multivalent vaccine (Chapter 4). Two chimeras were constructed with LB1(f)2,1,3, a trivalent synthetic B-cell epitope from the extracellular loop 3 region of the P5 fimbrin protein of NTHi, positioned at the N- or C-terminus of rOMP26VTAL. The solubility of rOMP26VTAL was affected by the fusion, with both chimera constructs expressed only in the insoluble fraction, thus requiring a denaturing protocol for purification. Although rLB1(f)2,1,3-OMP26VTAL was expressed and purified as a more stable protein and in greater yield than rOMP26VTAL-LB1(f)2,1,3, the relative positioning of the fusion was important and rOMP26VTAL-LB1(f)2,1,3 was significantly more immunogenic in rats than rLB1(f)2,1,3-OMP26VTAL. In addition, rOMP26VTALLB1( f)2,1,3, but not rLB1(f)2,1,3-OMP26VTAL induced a significant degree of bacterial clearance following pulmonary challenge with NTHi, in levels comparable to the highly efficacious rOMP26VTAL construct. In the third part of the thesis, bacterial ghosts were evaluated as a novel mucosal delivery technology for rOMP26VTAL and rOMP26VTAL-LB1(f)2,1,3, (Chapter 5). To mimic the natural presentation of OMP26 and P5 fimbrin antigens on the cell surface of NTHi, an OmpA� sandwich fusion surface display system was developed for the outer membrane expression of the OMP26 constructs in E. coli ghosts. Following gut immunisation, but not intranasal immunisation even when co-administered with the cholera toxin�derived adjuvant CTA1-DD, bacterial ghosts were successful at presenting OMP26VTAL and rOMP26VTAL-LB1(f)2,1,3 to the immune system for the induction of enhanced clearance of NTHi in the rat pulmonary challenge model. Although this study was the first to demonstrate enhanced bacterial clearance induced by heterologous antigens expressed in the outer membrane of bacterial ghosts, future studies with ghosts will require optimisation of the expression levels of the OmpA� fusion proteins possibly to avoid cross-reactive responses related to high doses of ghosts in the inoculum. This thesis presents data that both supports the further evaluation of rOMP26 constructs for clinical trials, and has demonstrated the significant effects of structural changes, method of production and delivery system can have on the immunogenicity of a candidate vaccine. Such knowledge will contribute to and provide some new approaches for enhancing the efficiency of vaccine development against a range of diseases including those caused by NTHi. Major Outcomes: 1. Demonstration that the immunogenicity of rOMP26 antigen constructs is affected by structural modifications and their positioning within the construct, and by the delivery system. 2. Development of rOMP26VTAL, an rOMP26 construct with the KNIAK sequence deletion of the signal peptide n-region. This protein retains the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of rOMP26, but is produced with reduced cleavage of the signal peptide, resulting in higher yields and a stable protein. Lacks extraneous plasmidderived multiple cloning site sequence, and is produced in high yield as a stable protein. 3. Construction of a NTHi rOMP26VTAL-LB1(f)2,1,3 chimera antigen that induced enhanced clearance of NTHi in an acute pulmonary challenge model in rats. 4. Development of an OmpA� surface display system for the expression of rOMP26 antigen constructs in the outer membrane of E. coli/bacterial ghosts 5. Bacterial ghosts were successful as delivery vehicles for rOMP26 candidate vaccine constructs when delivered in the gut.

Orientador: Reinaldo Marchetto
Co-orientador: Luiz Carlos Bertucci Barbosa
Banca: Fernanda Zanolli Freitas
Banca: Esteban Nicolás Lorenzón
Resumo: Sistemas toxina-antitoxina (TA) são tipicamente formados por dois genes que codificam uma toxina estável e uma antitoxina lábil. Esses módulos genéticos são diversos e abundantes em procariotos, sendo agrupados em seis tipos (I à VI) com base na natureza da antitoxina e no seu modo de interação com a toxina. O sistema TA GhoT/GhoS (tipo V) foi identificado em Escherichia coli, estando implicado no fenômeno de persistência celular (tolerância temporária à antibióticos). Embora a antitoxina desse sistema (GhoS) tenha sido bem caracterizada, os detalhes que envolvem a estrutura e os mecanismos de ação da toxina GhoT ainda não foram totalmente esclarecidos, sendo apenas demonstrado que a molécula in vivo ocasiona a formação de poros na membrana plasmática bacteriana, interrompendo a produção de ATP. Dessa maneira, considerando o potencial biotecnológico dos sistemas TA como alvos para o desenho de novos bactericidas, o presente trabalho caracterizou funcional e estruturalmente a proteína GhoT de Salmonella enterica e peptídeos derivados com capacidade de interação com membranas biológicas. Para isso, após a obtenção da sequência de aminoácidos da GhoT de S. enterica por BLAST e de sua predição estrutural in silico, a proteína e seus derivados (HN e HC) foram sintetizados pelo método químico em fase sólida, sendo purificados por cromatografia líquida de alta eficiência e identificados por espectrometria de massas. Em seguida, a capacidade de estruturação das moléculas foi avaliada com o auxílio da espectroscopia de dicroísmo circular. Já as suas funções foram investigadas através de ensaios de permeabilização de vesículas lipídicas, expressão heteróloga em bactéria e atividade antimicrobiana. Coletivamente, os estudos demonstraram que os polipeptídeos estão predominantemente enovelados em α-hélice, confirmando a modelagem estrutural realizada....
Abstract: Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are typically formed by two genes encoding a stable toxin and a labile antitoxin. These genetic modules are diverse and abundant in prokaryotes and are grouped into six types (I to VI) based on the nature of the antitoxin and its mode of interaction with the toxin. The TA GhoT/GhoS system (type V) was identified in Escherichia coli, being implicated in the phenomenon of cell persistence (temporary tolerance to antibiotics). Although the antitoxin of this system (GhoS) has been well characterized, the details surrounding the structure and mechanisms of action of the GhoT toxin have not yet been fully elucidated, and it has only been shown that the molecule in vivo causes the formation of pores in the bacterial plasma membrane, disrupting the production of ATP. In this way, taking into account the biotechnological potential of TA systems as targets for the design of new bactericides, the present work characterized the GhoT protein of Salmonella enterica and derived peptides with interaction capacity with biological membranes. After obtaining the amino acid sequence of S. enterica GhoT by BLAST and its in silico structural prediction, the protein and analogues (HN and HC) were synthesized by the solid phase chemical method and were isolated by high performance liquid chromatography and identified by means of mass spectrometry. Then, the conformations of the molecules were evaluated with the help of circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Its functions were investigated through lipid vesicle permeabilization assays, heterologous expression in bacteria and antimicrobial activity. Thus, collectively, the information revealed by the studies demonstrated that the polypeptides are predominantly anchored in α-helix, confirming the structural modeling performed. In addition, it was observed that the molecules retain the same lytic activity verified for the E. coli GhoT toxin, especially...
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Life is ubiquitous on the Earth’s surface. Exuberant, fantastical, tough, and very, very persistent, it gets pretty well everywhere. Darwin marvelled at what could be found in a simple tangled thicket by a footpath, while a spadeful of soil can keep a zoologist occupied for weeks—all those mites and worms and springtails and leatherjackets—and a microbiologist busy for months. There is life in the hottest deserts and in Antarctic ice and nestling up against boiling volcanic vents. It flies high through the air too—not just birds and bees, but spores and pollen and aerial bacteria (so abundant that they can make rain fall more copiously by acting as nuclei for the raindrops). In death, too, the organisms can be tough. Not every corpse gets recycled back to form new generations of the living, and not all fossils are such scarcities that each becomes a museum piece or commands a handsome reserve price at an auction of ancient curiosities. The ghosts of the past are all around us, in solid form. Indeed, we owe to them the comfortable contemporary life (not enjoyed by all, admittedly), of centrally heated houses and easy travel and an abundance of food. The remains of dead plants and animals power contemporary human civilization, in the form of oil and gas and coal. At a price, of course, that is still to be paid. The pebble contains a little coaly stuff within it—tiny flecks of what is now essentially carbon, which gives the dark laminae their colour. It probably makes up, today, something over one per cent of the pebble; when the pebble stuff had been layers of mud and sand on that Silurian sea floor, it would have been nearer 10 per cent. That carbon was once living things—but how does one go about finding what kind of living things these once were? The easiest way to release the cornucopia of ancient life locked in the pebble might strike a disinterested bystander as a little harsh. Indeed, it would be quite terminal for the pebble, albeit highly revealing. The procedure is, by now, quite standard.