Cryo-EM reveals species-specific components within the Helicobacter pylori Cag type IV secretion system core complex

  1. Michael J Sheedlo
  2. Jeong Min Chung
  3. Neha Sawhney
  4. Clarissa L Durie
  5. Timothy L Cover  Is a corresponding author
  6. Melanie D Ohi  Is a corresponding author
  7. D Borden Lacy  Is a corresponding author
  1. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, United States
  2. University of Michigan, United States
  3. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, United States
  4. University Of Michigan, United States

Abstract

The pathogenesis of Helicobacter pylori-associated gastric cancer is dependent on delivery of CagA into host cells through a type IV secretion system (T4SS). The H. pylori Cag T4SS includes a large membrane-spanning core complex containing 5 proteins, organized into an outer membrane cap (OMC), a periplasmic ring (PR) and a stalk. Here, we report cryo-EM reconstructions of a core complex lacking Cag3 and an improved map of the wild-type complex. We define the structures of two unique species-specific components (Cag3 and CagM) and show that Cag3 is structurally similar to CagT. Unexpectedly, components of the OMC are organized in a 1:1:2:2:5 molar ratio (CagY:CagX:CagT:CagM:Cag3). CagX and CagY are components of both the OMC and the PR and bridge the symmetry mismatch between these regions. These results reveal that assembly of the H. pylori T4SS core complex is dependent on incorporation of interwoven species-specific components.

Data availability

All cryo-EM data included in this manuscript are available through the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMD-20021, EMD-22081, EMD-22076, and EMD-22077). All models that were constructed from these data are available via the Protein Data Bank (PDB 6X6S, 6X6J, 6X6K, and 6X6L).

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Michael J Sheedlo

    Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3185-1727
  2. Jeong Min Chung

    Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4285-8764
  3. Neha Sawhney

    Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nasvhille, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4943-1018
  4. Clarissa L Durie

    Life Sciences Institute, University Of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4027-4386
  5. Timothy L Cover

    Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, United States
    For correspondence
    timothy.l.cover@vumc.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8503-002X
  6. Melanie D Ohi

    Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    For correspondence
    mohi@umich.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1750-4793
  7. D Borden Lacy

    Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology; Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, United States
    For correspondence
    borden.lacy@vanderbilt.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2273-8121

Funding

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (AI118932)

  • Timothy L Cover
  • Melanie D Ohi
  • D Borden Lacy

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (AI039657)

  • Timothy L Cover

National Cancer Institute (CA116087)

  • Timothy L Cover

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM103310)

  • Melanie D Ohi

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (2T32DK007673)

  • Michael J Sheedlo

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Andrew P Carter, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom

Publication history

  1. Received: May 29, 2020
  2. Accepted: September 1, 2020
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: September 2, 2020 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: September 23, 2020 (version 2)

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

Metrics

  • 2,223
    Page views
  • 273
    Downloads
  • 16
    Citations

Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Michael J Sheedlo
  2. Jeong Min Chung
  3. Neha Sawhney
  4. Clarissa L Durie
  5. Timothy L Cover
  6. Melanie D Ohi
  7. D Borden Lacy
(2020)
Cryo-EM reveals species-specific components within the Helicobacter pylori Cag type IV secretion system core complex
eLife 9:e59495.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.59495

Further reading

    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Yuanyuan Wang, Yinhe Mao ... Changbin Chen
    Research Article Updated

    The transition metal iron plays a crucial role in living cells. However, high levels of iron are potentially toxic through the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), serving as a deterrent to the commensal fungus Candida albicans for colonization in the iron-rich gastrointestinal tract. We observe that the mutant lacking an iron-responsive transcription factor Hap43 is hyper-fit for colonization in murine gut. We demonstrate that high iron specifically triggers multiple post-translational modifications and proteasomal degradation of Hap43, a vital process guaranteeing the precision of intestinal ROS detoxification. Reduced levels of Hap43 de-repress the expression of antioxidant genes and therefore alleviate the deleterious ROS derived from iron metabolism. Our data reveal that Hap43 functions as a negative regulator for oxidative stress adaptation of C. albicans to gut colonization and thereby provide a new insight into understanding the interplay between iron homeostasis and fungal commensalism.

    1. Genetics and Genomics
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Abderrahman Hachani, Stefano G Giulieri ... Timothy P Stinear
    Research Article

    Staphylococcus aureus infections are associated with high mortality rates. Often considered an extracellular pathogen, S. aureus can persist and replicate within host cells, evading immune responses, and causing host cell death. Classical methods for assessing S. aureus cytotoxicity are limited by testing culture supernatants and endpoint measurements that do not capture the phenotypic diversity of intracellular bacteria. Using a well-established epithelial cell line model, we have developed a platform called InToxSa (intracellular toxicity of S. aureus) to quantify intracellular cytotoxic S. aureus phenotypes. Studying a panel of 387 S. aureus bacteraemia isolates, and combined with comparative, statistical, and functional genomics, our platform identified mutations in S. aureus clinical isolates that reduced bacterial cytotoxicity and promoted intracellular persistence. In addition to numerous convergent mutations in the Agr quorum sensing system, our approach detected mutations in other loci that also impacted cytotoxicity and intracellular persistence. We discovered that clinical mutations in ausA, encoding the aureusimine non-ribosomal peptide synthetase, reduced S. aureus cytotoxicity, and increased intracellular persistence. InToxSa is a versatile, high-throughput cell-based phenomics platform and we showcase its utility by identifying clinically relevant S. aureus pathoadaptive mutations that promote intracellular residency.