Hfq modulates global protein pattern and stress response in Bordetella pertussis

SURMANN, KRISTIN; DHOPLE, VISHNU; VECEREK, BRANISLAV; RODRIGUEZ, MARÍA EUGENIA; LAMBERTI, YANINA; BLANCÁ, BRUNO; SCHMIDT, FRANK; ALVAREZ HAYES, JIMENA; DEPKE, MAREN; RUIZ, ESPERANZA; VÖLKER, UWE

JOURNAL OF PROTEOMICS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2019 vol. 211

1874-3919

B. pertussis is the etiological agent of whooping cough, a highly contagious respiratory disease which remains uncontrolled worldwide. Understanding how this pathogen responds to the environmental changes and adapts to different niches found inside the host might contribute to gain insight into bacterial pathogenesis. Comparative analyses of previous transcriptomic and proteomic data suggested that post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms modulate B. pertussis virulence in response to iron availability. Iron scarcity represents one of the major stresses faced by bacterial pathogens inside the host. In this study, we used gel-free nanoLC-MS/MS-based proteomics to investigate whether Hfq, a highly conserved post-transcriptional regulatory protein, is involved in B. pertussis adaptation to low iron environment. To this end, we compared the protein profiles of wild type B. pertussis and its isogenic hfq deletion mutant strain under iron-replete and iron-depleted conditions. Almost of 33% of the proteins identified under iron starvation was found to be Hfq-dependent. Among them, proteins involved in oxidative stress tolerance and virulence factors that play a key role in the early steps of host colonization and bacterial persistence inside the host cells. Altogether these results suggest that Hfq shapes the infective phenotype of B. pertussis.