Legionella pneumophila regulates host cell motility by targeting Phldb2 with a 14-3-3ζ-dependent protease effector

  1. Lei Song  Is a corresponding author
  2. Jingjing Luo
  3. Hongou Wang
  4. Dan Huang
  5. Yunhao Tan
  6. Yao Liu
  7. Yingwu Wang
  8. Kaiwen Yu
  9. Yong Zhang
  10. Xiaoyun Liu
  11. Dan Li  Is a corresponding author
  12. Zhao-Qing Luo  Is a corresponding author
  1. Jilin University, China
  2. Peking University Health Science Center, China
  3. Purdue University, United States

Abstract

The cytoskeleton network of eukaryotic cells is essential for diverse cellular processes, including vesicle trafficking, cell motility and immunity, thus is a common target for bacterial virulence factors. A number of effectors from the bacterial pathogen Legionella pneumophila have been shown to modulate the function of host actin cytoskeleton to construct the Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV) permissive for its intracellular replication. In this study, we found that the Dot/Icm effector Lem8 (Lpg1290) is a protease whose activity is catalyzed by a Cys-His-Asp motif known to be associated with diverse biochemical activities. Intriguingly, we found that Lem8 interacts with the host regulatory protein 14-3-3ζ, which activates its protease activity. Furthermore, Lem8 undergoes self-cleavage in a process that requires 14-3-3ζ. We identified the Pleckstrin homology-like domain-containing protein Phldb2 involved in cytoskeleton organization as a target of Lem8 and demonstrated that Lem8 plays a role in the inhibition of host cell migration by attacking Phldb2.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript. Files for original images of blots and gels prior to being cropped for use in the main text have been included in the Supporting file (zip format).

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Lei Song

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    For correspondence
    lsong@jlu.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4115-065X
  2. Jingjing Luo

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Hongou Wang

    Department of Microbiology, Peking University Health Science Center, Peking, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Dan Huang

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Yunhao Tan

    Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Yao Liu

    Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4330-2389
  7. Yingwu Wang

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Kaiwen Yu

    Department of Microbiology, Peking University Health Science Center, Peking, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6050-8477
  9. Yong Zhang

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Xiaoyun Liu

    Department of Microbiology, Peking University Health Science Center, Peking, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Dan Li

    Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China
    For correspondence
    li_dan@jlu.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Zhao-Qing Luo

    Department of Biological Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States
    For correspondence
    luoz@purdue.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8890-6621

Funding

Jilin Scientific and Technological Development Program (20200403117SF)

  • Lei Song

Jilin Scientific and Technological Development Program (20200901010SF)

  • Dan Li

National Natural Science Foundation of China (21974002)

  • Xiaoyun Liu

Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation (5202012)

  • Xiaoyun Liu

National Institutes of Health (R01AI127465)

  • Zhao-Qing Luo

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

Reviewing Editor

  1. Christina L Stallings, Washington University School of Medicine, United States

Version history

  1. Received: August 20, 2021
  2. Preprint posted: September 6, 2021 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: February 16, 2022
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: February 17, 2022 (version 1)
  5. Version of Record published: February 24, 2022 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2022, Song et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 899
    Page views
  • 119
    Downloads
  • 13
    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. Lei Song
  2. Jingjing Luo
  3. Hongou Wang
  4. Dan Huang
  5. Yunhao Tan
  6. Yao Liu
  7. Yingwu Wang
  8. Kaiwen Yu
  9. Yong Zhang
  10. Xiaoyun Liu
  11. Dan Li
  12. Zhao-Qing Luo
(2022)
Legionella pneumophila regulates host cell motility by targeting Phldb2 with a 14-3-3ζ-dependent protease effector
eLife 11:e73220.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73220

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73220

Further reading

    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Nguyen Thi Khanh Nhu, Minh-Duy Phan ... Mark A Schembri
    Research Article

    Neonatal meningitis is a devastating disease associated with high mortality and neurological sequelae. Escherichia coli is the second most common cause of neonatal meningitis in full-term infants (herein NMEC) and the most common cause of meningitis in preterm neonates. Here, we investigated the genomic relatedness of a collection of 58 NMEC isolates spanning 1974–2020 and isolated from seven different geographic regions. We show NMEC are comprised of diverse sequence types (STs), with ST95 (34.5%) and ST1193 (15.5%) the most common. No single virulence gene profile was conserved in all isolates; however, genes encoding fimbrial adhesins, iron acquisition systems, the K1 capsule, and O antigen types O18, O75, and O2 were most prevalent. Antibiotic resistance genes occurred infrequently in our collection. We also monitored the infection dynamics in three patients that suffered recrudescent invasive infection caused by the original infecting isolate despite appropriate antibiotic treatment based on antibiogram profile and resistance genotype. These patients exhibited severe gut dysbiosis. In one patient, the causative NMEC isolate was also detected in the fecal flora at the time of the second infection episode and after treatment. Thus, although antibiotics are the standard of care for NMEC treatment, our data suggest that failure to eliminate the causative NMEC that resides intestinally can lead to the existence of a refractory reservoir that may seed recrudescent infection.

    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Swati Jain, Gherman Uritskiy ... Venigalla B Rao
    Research Article

    A productive HIV-1 infection in humans is often established by transmission and propagation of a single transmitted/founder (T/F) virus, which then evolves into a complex mixture of variants during the lifetime of infection. An effective HIV-1 vaccine should elicit broad immune responses in order to block the entry of diverse T/F viruses. Currently, no such vaccine exists. An in-depth study of escape variants emerging under host immune pressure during very early stages of infection might provide insights into such a HIV-1 vaccine design. Here, in a rare longitudinal study involving HIV-1 infected individuals just days after infection in the absence of antiretroviral therapy, we discovered a remarkable genetic shift that resulted in near complete disappearance of the original T/F virus and appearance of a variant with H173Y mutation in the variable V2 domain of the HIV-1 envelope protein. This coincided with the disappearance of the first wave of strictly H173-specific antibodies and emergence of a second wave of Y173-specific antibodies with increased breadth. Structural analyses indicated conformational dynamism of the envelope protein which likely allowed selection of escape variants with a conformational switch in the V2 domain from an α-helix (H173) to a β-strand (Y173) and induction of broadly reactive antibody responses. This differential breadth due to a single mutational change was also recapitulated in a mouse model. Rationally designed combinatorial libraries containing 54 conformational variants of V2 domain around position 173 further demonstrated increased breadth of antibody responses elicited to diverse HIV-1 envelope proteins. These results offer new insights into designing broadly effective HIV-1 vaccines.