Biosensor-integrated transposon mutagenesis reveals rv0158 as a coordinator of redox homeostasis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Abstract
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is evolutionarily equipped to resist exogenous reactive oxygen species but shows vulnerability to an increase in endogenous ROS (eROS). Since eROS is an unavoidable consequence of aerobic metabolism, understanding how Mtb manages eROS levels is essential yet needs to be characterized. By combining the Mrx1-roGFP2 redox biosensor with transposon mutagenesis, we identified 368 genes (redoxosome) responsible for maintaining homeostatic levels of eROS in Mtb. Integrating redoxosome with a global network of transcriptional regulators revealed a hypothetical protein (Rv0158) as a critical node managing eROS in Mtb. Disruption of rv0158 (rv0158 KO) impaired growth, redox balance, respiration, and metabolism of Mtb on glucose but not on fatty acids. Importantly, rv0158 KO exhibited enhanced growth on propionate, and the Rv0158 protein directly binds to methylmalonyl-CoA, a key intermediate in propionate catabolism. Metabolite profiling, ChIP-Seq, and gene-expression analyses indicate that Rv0158 manages metabolic neutralization of propionate toxicity by regulating the methylcitrate cycle. Disruption of rv0158 enhanced the sensitivity of Mtb to oxidative stress, nitric oxide, and anti-TB drugs. Lastly, rv0158 KO showed poor survival in macrophages and persistence defect in mice. Our results suggest that Rv0158 is a metabolic integrator for carbon metabolism and redox balance in Mtb.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript (in the materials and methods section). The TraDIS data has been submitted to NCBI's Gene Expression Omnibus (Submission ID: SUB11081305; BioProject ID: PRJNA807454). RNA Sequencing data have been submitted to NCBI's Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO, accession number GSE196844). Source Data have been provided for all Figures. Source Data contain the numerical data used to generate the figures.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Wellcome Trust- DBT India Alliance (IA/S/16/2/502700)
- Amit Singh
DBT (BT/PR13522/COE/34/27/2015)
- Amit Singh
Indian Institute of Science (Graduate Student Fellowship)
- Somnath Shee
DBT-IISc Partnership Program (grant 22-0905-0006-05-987 436)
- Amit Singh
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal studies were executed as per guidelines prescribed by the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals, Government of India, with approval from the Institutional Animal Ethical Committee (CAF/Ethics/544/2017- Institute animal ethical clearance number) and Biosafety Level-3 Committee.
Copyright
© 2023, Shee 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.
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