The role of the ESX–3 gene cluster and iron on mycobacterial viability

MSc (Biochemistry) North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus 2013.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), M. tuberculosis, the causative agent of TB, accounts for approximately 1.7 million deaths annually. Further contributing causes to the worldwide TB incidence, is the widespread unavailability and ineffectiveness of TB vaccines, time consuming diagnostic methods and unsuccessful treatment approaches. Research for better characterising mycobacteria in general, or other Mycobacterium species, may help us to better understand M. tuberculosis and TB disease mechanisms, which will in turn lower the future TB disease prevalence, as this may lead to the development of better treatments, diagnostics and vaccines. Mycobacteria use various secretion pathways, including the ESX- or type VII secretion (T7S) system, to ensure transport across the complex cell wall. The genome of M. tuberculosis has five copies of a gene cluster known as the ESX gene cluster region, which is associated with virulence and viability of mycobacteria. The ESX-3 gene cluster is thought to be essential for growth of M. tuberculosis and proposed to be involved in iron / zinc homeostasis. Mycobacteria synthesise siderophores, which are proposed to be involved in the uptake of iron over their cell wall. M. tuberculosis are known to produce two types of siderophores, namely: carboxymycobactins and mycobactins. Loots and colleagues, however illustrated, that ESX-3 knockouts, show signs of iron overload, despite the absence of the mycobactins induced by knocking out the ESX-3 gene cluster. It was hypothesised, that this overload occurs due to an increase in exochelin synthesis, another iron uptake protein not associated with ESX-3, overcompensating for the perceived iron depletion in the knockout organism. A Metabolomics research approach was subsequently used in this study, to generate new information in order to better characterise the role of iron on the metabolism of these organisms, and additionally confirm the role of ESX-3 in iron uptake. In this study, we firstly determined the most optimal extraction conditions for this metabolomics investigation. Two extraction methods were subsequently investigated and compared, considering their repeatability and their respective capacities to extract those compounds which best differentiate the M. smegmatis ESX-3 knockouts and wild-type parent strains. Considering the results generated, the total metabolome method was chosen for further analyses, for the following reasons: 1) it is simpler, 2) faster, 3) showed better repeatability, 4) extracts those compounds best differentiating the compared groups and 5) has been previously described for metabolomics analyses characterising ESX-3 gene functionality, hence potentially allowing us to compare results to that previously generated and published data. Subsequently, we used the chosen extraction method, followed by GCxGC-TOFMS analysis of the separately cultured M. smegmatis wild-type sample extracts, cultured in normal, low and high iron conditions, to determine the influence of varying iron concentrations on the metabolome of this organism, by metabolomics comparisons of these groups. Following this, an identical research approach was used to compare the metabolome of a M. smegmatis ESX-3 knock-out strain, to that of a M. smegmatis wild type parent strain, both cultured in normal / standardised iron concentrations. Considering the results generated when comparing the metabolome of a M. smegmatis ESX-3 knock-out strain to that of a M. smegmatis wild type parent strain, the altered metabolome of the M. smegmatis ESX-3 knockouts correlated well to that of the M. smegmatis wild type cultured in elevated iron growth conditions. This suggests ESX-3 is involved in iron uptake, and that knocking out the ESX-3 gene cluster of M. smegmatis does in fact result in a metabolome profile suggesting iron overload, as was proposed by Loots et al (2012), most probably due the exochelins overcompensating for the absence of mycobactins, in M. smegmatis ESX-3 knockouts.Master