Catenazzi Maria Chiara E, Jones Helen, Wallace Iain, Clifton Jacqueline, Chong James P J, Jackson Matthew A, Macdonald Sandy, Edwards James, Moir James W B
Department of Biology, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
Mol Microbiol. 2014 Jul;93(2):346-55. doi: 10.1111/mmi.12664. Epub 2014 Jun 27.
Neisseria meningitidis is an important human pathogen that is capable of killing within hours of infection. Its normal habitat is the nasopharynx of adult humans. Here we identify a genomic island (the prp gene cluster) in N. meningitidis that enables this species to utilize propionic acid as a supplementary carbon source during growth, particularly under nutrient poor growth conditions. The prp gene cluster encodes enzymes for a methylcitrate cycle. Novel aspects of the methylcitrate cycle in N. meningitidis include a propionate kinase which was purified and characterized, and a putative propionate transporter. This genomic island is absent from the close relative of N. meningitidis, the commensal Neisseria lactamica, which chiefly colonizes infants not adults. We reason that the possession of the prp genes provides a metabolic advantage to N. meningitidis in the adult oral cavity, which is rich in propionic acid-generating bacteria. Data from classical microbiological and sequence-based microbiome studies provide several lines of supporting evidence that N. meningitidis colonization is correlated with propionic acid generating bacteria, with a strong correlation between prp-containing Neisseria and propionic acid generating bacteria from the genus Porphyromonas, and that this may explain adolescent/adult colonization by N. meningitidis.
脑膜炎奈瑟菌是一种重要的人类病原体，能够在感染数小时内致人死亡。它的正常栖息地是成年人类的鼻咽部。在此，我们在脑膜炎奈瑟菌中鉴定出一个基因组岛（prp基因簇），该基因簇使该物种在生长过程中能够利用丙酸作为补充碳源，尤其是在营养匮乏的生长条件下。prp基因簇编码参与甲基柠檬酸循环的酶。脑膜炎奈瑟菌甲基柠檬酸循环的新特点包括一种已被纯化和鉴定的丙酸激酶，以及一种假定的丙酸转运蛋白。脑膜炎奈瑟菌的近亲、主要定殖于婴儿而非成年人的共生菌乳酸奈瑟菌中不存在这个基因组岛。我们推断，拥有prp基因赋予脑膜炎奈瑟菌在富含产丙酸细菌的成人口腔中具有代谢优势。来自经典微生物学和基于序列的微生物组研究的数据提供了多条支持性证据，表明脑膜炎奈瑟菌定殖与产丙酸细菌相关，含prp的奈瑟菌与卟啉单胞菌属产丙酸细菌之间存在强相关性，这可能解释了脑膜炎奈瑟菌在青少年/成人中的定殖情况。
