Team:Paris Bettencourt/Project/Infiltrate

   Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (TB), spreads by aerosol and infects its host through the airways. The bacterium is phagocytosed by macrophages in the lung, yet often evades death in the lysosome. Mtb can persist for years or even decades inside macrophages by inhibiting phagosome/lysosome fusion and supressing the normal acidification of the lysosome. An efficient treatment for persistent TB must enter infected macrophages and kill the pathogen there. In our system, E. coli is both the vector and the therapeutic agent agent by expressing the gene LLO to enter macrophages and TDMH to kill mycobacteria.

TDMH and the mycobacterial cell wall Mycobacterium species share a characteristic cell wall: thick, waxy, hydrophobic, and rich in mycolic acids. The low permeability of the envelope to hydrophilic solutes contributes to the intrinsic drug tolerance in mycobacteria. Trehalose Dimycolate Hydrolase (TDMH) is a cutinase-like serine esterase that triggers rapid lysis of the mycobacterial cell wall by degrading the mycolate layer. The enzyme was first isolated from Mycobacterium smegmatis and subsequently shown to hydrolyze purified TDM from various mycobacterial species. Exposure to TDMH triggers an immediate release of free mycolic acids, ultimately leading to lysis of many mycobacteria including Mtb (Yang et al. 2012). We have used M. smegmatis as a model system because Mtb are highly pathogenic and difficult to culture in the lab. M. smegmatis is a close relative of Mtb, shares many of its membrane properties, and is commonly used as a stand-in for Mtb physiology in the lab. In our system, described in the methods below, we used E. coli BL21 (DE3) as a chassis to express TDMH from an IPTG-inducible strong T7 promoter. Killing mycobacteria with TDMH Figure 1 shows the killing of M. smegmatis with TDMH expressed by E. coli. We mixed liquid cultures of E. coli and M. smegmatis at equal cell densities as determined by plating assays. When expression of TMDH was induced with IPTG, nearly 99% of the M. smegmatis were killed within six hours. We saw no change in viability in cultures of M. smegmatis alone or when mixed with uninduced E. coli.

Bibliography

1. Yang Y, Bhatti A, Ke D, Gonzalez-Juarrero M, Lenaerts A, Kremer L, Guerardel Y, Zhang P, Ojha AK (2012) : Exposure to a cutinase-like serine esterase triggers rapid lysis of multiple mycobacterial species. J Biol Chem. 2013 Jan 4;288(1):382-92.
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