Comparative proteome profiling of host-pathogen interactions: insights into the adaptation mechanisms of Francisella tularensis in the host cell environment
Abstract
The intracellular pathogens have the unique capacity to sense the host cell environment and to respond to it by alteration in gene expression and protein synthesis. Proteomic analysis of bacteria exposed directly to the host cell milieu might thus greatly contribute to the elucidation of processes leading to bacterial adaptation and proliferation inside the host cell.
Here we have performed a global proteome analysis of a virulent Francisella tularensis subsp. holarctica strain during its intracellular cycle within the macrophage-like murine cell line J774.2 using the metabolic pulse-labeling of bacterial proteins with S-35-methionine and S-35-cysteine in various periods of infection. The two-dimensional gel analysis revealed macrophage-induced bacterial proteome changes in which 64 identified proteins were differentially expressed in comparison to controls grown in tissue culture medium.
Nevertheless, activation of macrophages with interferon gamma before in vitro infection decreased the number of detected alterations in protein levels. Thus, these proteomic data indicate the F. tularensis ability to adapt to the intracellular hostile environment that is, however, diminished by prior interferon gamma treatment of host cells.