The intracellular pathogen Francisella tularensis escapes from adaptive immunity by metabolic adaptation

• Published in: Life science alliance 2022-10, Vol.5 (10), p.e202201441
• Main Authors: Shibata, Kensuke, Shimizu, Takashi, Nakahara, Mashio, Ito, Emi, Legoux, Francois, Fujii, Shotaro, Yamada, Yuka, Furutani-Seiki, Makoto, Lantz, Olivier, Yamasaki, Sho, Watarai, Masahisa, Shirai, Mutsunori
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2575-1077; 2575-1077
• DOI: 10.26508/lsa.202201441

Intracellular pathogens lose many metabolic genes during their evolution from free-living bacteria, but the pathogenic consequences of their altered metabolic programs on host immunity are poorly understood. Here, we show that a pathogenic strain of (FT) has five amino acid substitutions in RibD, a converting enzyme of the riboflavin synthetic pathway responsible for generating metabolites recognized by mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells. Metabolites from a free-living strain, (FN), activated MAIT cells in a T-cell receptor (TCR)-dependent manner, whereas introduction of FT-type to the free-living strain was sufficient to attenuate this activation in both human and mouse MAIT cells. Intranasal infection in mice showed that the -expressing FN strain induced impaired Th1-type MAIT cell expansion and resulted in reduced bacterial clearance and worsened survival compared with the wild-type free-living strain FN. These results demonstrate that can acquire immune evasion capacity by alteration of metabolic programs during evolution.