Department of Virology, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland.
Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Polish Academy of Sciences, Ks. Trojdena 4, 02-109, Warsaw, Poland.
J Microbiol. 2020 May;58(5):405-414. doi: 10.1007/s12275-020-9505-9. Epub 2020 Apr 11.
Neisseria gonorrhoeae, an obligatory human pathogen causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, which remains a global health problem. N. gonorrhoeae primarily infects the mucosa of the genitourinary tract, which in women, is colonized by natural microbiota, dominated by Lactobacillus spp., that protect human cells against pathogens. In this study, we demonstrated that precolonization of human epithelial cells with Lactobacillus crispatus, one of the most prevalent bacteria in the female urogenital tract, or preincubation with the L. crispatus enolase or glutamine synthetase impairs the adhesion and invasiveness of N. gonorrhoeae toward epithelial cells, two crucial steps in gonococcal pathogenesis. Furthermore, decreased expression of genes encoding the proinflam-matory cytokines, TNFα and CCL20, which are secreted as a consequence of N. gonorrhoeae infection, was observed in N. gonorrhoeae-infected epithelial cells that had been preco-lonized with L. crispatus or preincubated with enolase and glutamine synthetase. Thus, our results indicate that the protection of human cells against N. gonorrhoeae infection is a complex process and that L. crispatus and its proteins enolase and glutamine synthetase can have a potential role in protecting epithelial cells against gonococcal infection. Therefore, these results are important since disturbances of the micro-biota or of its proteins can result in dysbiosis, which is associated with increased susceptibility of epithelium to pathogens.
淋病奈瑟菌是一种必需的人类病原体，会引起性传播疾病淋病，这仍然是一个全球性的健康问题。淋病奈瑟菌主要感染泌尿生殖道的黏膜，而在女性中，生殖道黏膜被以乳杆菌属为主的天然微生物群定植，这些微生物群可以保护人体细胞免受病原体的侵害。在这项研究中，我们证明了乳酸杆菌属的预定植，一种在女性泌尿生殖道中最常见的细菌，或用乳酸杆菌属的烯醇酶或谷氨酰胺合成酶预先孵育，可以损害淋病奈瑟菌对上皮细胞的黏附和侵袭能力，这是淋病奈瑟菌发病机制的两个关键步骤。此外，在被淋病奈瑟菌感染的上皮细胞中，观察到编码促炎细胞因子 TNFα 和 CCL20 的基因表达减少，这是淋病奈瑟菌感染的结果。而这些上皮细胞已经被乳酸杆菌属预定植或用烯醇酶和谷氨酰胺合成酶预先孵育。因此，我们的结果表明，人体细胞对淋病奈瑟菌感染的保护是一个复杂的过程，而乳酸杆菌属及其蛋白烯醇酶和谷氨酰胺合成酶可以在保护上皮细胞免受淋病奈瑟菌感染方面发挥作用。因此，这些结果很重要，因为微生物群或其蛋白的紊乱会导致微生态失调，这与上皮细胞对病原体的易感性增加有关。
