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Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments

Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical infectious disease, produced by the environmentally persistent pathogen Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU). Neither the ecological niche nor the exact mode of transmission of MU are completely elucidated. However, some environmental factors, such as the concentration in...

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Autores principales: Sanhueza, Daniel, Guégan, Jean-François, Jordan, Heather, Chevillon, Christine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30836720
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11030146
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author Sanhueza, Daniel
Guégan, Jean-François
Jordan, Heather
Chevillon, Christine
author_facet Sanhueza, Daniel
Guégan, Jean-François
Jordan, Heather
Chevillon, Christine
author_sort Sanhueza, Daniel
collection PubMed
description Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical infectious disease, produced by the environmentally persistent pathogen Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU). Neither the ecological niche nor the exact mode of transmission of MU are completely elucidated. However, some environmental factors, such as the concentration in chitin and pH values, were reported to promote MU growth in vitro. We pursued this research using next generation sequencing (NGS) and mRNA sequencing to investigate potential changes in MU genomic expression profiles across in vitro environmental conditions known to be suitable for MU growth. Supplementing the growth culture medium in either chitin alone, calcium alone, or in both chitin and calcium significantly impacted the MU transcriptome and thus several metabolic pathways, such as, for instance, those involved in DNA synthesis or cell wall production. By contrast, some genes carried by the virulence plasmid and necessary for the production of the mycolactone toxin were expressed neither in control nor in any modified environments. We hypothesized that these genes are only expressed in stressful conditions. Our results describe important environmental determinants playing a role in the pathogenicity of MU, helping the understanding of its complex natural life cycle and encouraging further research using genomic approaches.
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spelling pubmed-64686292019-04-22 Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments Sanhueza, Daniel Guégan, Jean-François Jordan, Heather Chevillon, Christine Toxins (Basel) Article Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical infectious disease, produced by the environmentally persistent pathogen Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU). Neither the ecological niche nor the exact mode of transmission of MU are completely elucidated. However, some environmental factors, such as the concentration in chitin and pH values, were reported to promote MU growth in vitro. We pursued this research using next generation sequencing (NGS) and mRNA sequencing to investigate potential changes in MU genomic expression profiles across in vitro environmental conditions known to be suitable for MU growth. Supplementing the growth culture medium in either chitin alone, calcium alone, or in both chitin and calcium significantly impacted the MU transcriptome and thus several metabolic pathways, such as, for instance, those involved in DNA synthesis or cell wall production. By contrast, some genes carried by the virulence plasmid and necessary for the production of the mycolactone toxin were expressed neither in control nor in any modified environments. We hypothesized that these genes are only expressed in stressful conditions. Our results describe important environmental determinants playing a role in the pathogenicity of MU, helping the understanding of its complex natural life cycle and encouraging further research using genomic approaches. MDPI 2019-03-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6468629/ /pubmed/30836720 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11030146 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sanhueza, Daniel
Guégan, Jean-François
Jordan, Heather
Chevillon, Christine
Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title_full Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title_fullStr Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title_full_unstemmed Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title_short Environmental Variations in Mycobacterium ulcerans Transcriptome: Absence of Mycolactone Expression in Suboptimal Environments
title_sort environmental variations in mycobacterium ulcerans transcriptome: absence of mycolactone expression in suboptimal environments
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468629/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30836720
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11030146
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