Mechanism of nitrite transporter NirC in motility, biofilm formation, and adhesion of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli

The Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) nirC gene encodes a nitrite transporter, which involved in transporting toxic nitrite (NO 2 − ) from the environment into the bacteria. Although the deletion of nirC gene could cause changes in motility, adhesion in the previous study, and the virulence involved in t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archives of microbiology 2021-09, Vol.203 (7), p.4221-4231
Main Authors: Liu, Jiaqi, Zhang, Dong, Lian, Siqi, Gu, Xuanqiang, Hou, Qianxi, Xia, Pengpeng, Zhu, Guoqiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adhesion
Biochemistry
Biofilms
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biotechnology
Cell Biology
Deficient mutant
Deletion mutant
E coli
Ecology
Endothelial cells
Escherichia coli
Gene deletion
High performance liquid chromatography
Life Sciences
Liquid chromatography
Microbial Ecology
Microbiology
Microvasculature
Motility
Mutation
Nitrites
Nitrogen dioxide
Original Paper
Strain
Virulence
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Summary:The Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) nirC gene encodes a nitrite transporter, which involved in transporting toxic nitrite (NO 2 − ) from the environment into the bacteria. Although the deletion of nirC gene could cause changes in motility, adhesion in the previous study, and the virulence involved in the specified mechanism for pathogenic E. coli remains to be known. In the present work, we aimed to evaluate the role of NirC in a serotype O2:K1:H7 avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) strain. For this purpose, we generated a NirC-deficient mutant of APEC XM strain and examined its biological characteristics. The nirC gene deletion mutant enhanced ability of motility, decreased in biofilm formation, and it markedly reduced ability to adhere mouse brain microvascular endothelial cell b.End3 cells. For understanding its mechanism, sequentially we detected and found the stress regulator rpoS and its downstream genes csrA were up-regulated in NirC-deficient mutant while diguanylate cyclase gene dgcT was down-regulated. By high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) experiment, we demonstrated the concentration of intracellular 3′,5′-cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) significantly decrease in nirC gene deletion mutant. Taken data together, we may make a conclusion with a possible signal pathway clue, due to NirC mutation, environmental NO 2 − accumulation leads to nitrite stress and inactivates c-di-GMP synthesis by stimulating the stress regulator RpoS, resulting in changes of biological characteristics.
ISSN:0302-8933
1432-072X
DOI:10.1007/s00203-021-02412-5