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The M protein of Streptococcus canis (SCM) is a virulence factor and serves as a surface-associated receptor with a particular affinity for mini-plasminogen, a cleavage product of the broad-spectrum serine protease plasmin. Here, we report that SCM has an additional high-affinity immunoglobulin G (IgG) binding activity. The ability of a particular S. canis isolate to bind to IgG significantly correlates with a scm-positive phenotype, suggesting a dominant role of SCM as an IgG receptor. Subsequent heterologous expression of SCM in non-IgG binding S. gordonii and Western Blot analysis with purified recombinant SCM proteins confirmed its IgG receptor function. As expected for a zoonotic agent, the SCM-IgG interaction is species-unspecific, with a particular affinity of SCM for IgGs derived from human, cats, dogs, horses, mice, and rabbits, but not from cows and goats. Similar to other streptococcal IgG-binding proteins, the interaction between SCM and IgG occurs via the conserved Fc domain and is, therefore, non-opsonic. Interestingly, the interaction between SCM and IgG-Fc on the bacterial surface specifically prevents opsonization by C1q, which might constitute another anti-phagocytic mechanism of SCM. Extensive binding analyses with a variety of different truncated SCM fragments defined a region of 52 amino acids located in the central part of the mature SCM protein which is important for IgG binding. This binding region is highly conserved among SCM proteins derived from different S. canis isolates but differs significantly from IgG-Fc receptors of S. pyogenes and S. dysgalactiae sub. equisimilis, respectively. In summary, we present an additional role of SCM in the pathogen-host interaction of S. canis. The detailed analysis of the SCM-IgG interaction should contribute to a better understanding of the complex roles of M proteins in streptococcal pathogenesis.
Lung dendritic cells facilitate extrapulmonary bacterial dissemination during pneumococcal pneumonia
(2013)
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of bacterial pneumonia worldwide. Given the critical role of dendritic cells (DCs) in regulating and modulating the immune response to pathogens, we investigated here the role of DCs in S. pneumoniae lung infections. Using a well-established transgenic mouse line which allows the conditional transient depletion of DCs, we showed that ablation of DCs resulted in enhanced resistance to intranasal challenge with S. pneumoniae. DCs-depleted mice exhibited delayed bacterial systemic dissemination, significantly reduced bacterial loads in the infected organs and lower levels of serum inflammatory mediators than non-depleted animals. The increased resistance of DCs-depleted mice to S. pneumoniae was associated with a better capacity to restrict pneumococci extrapulmonary dissemination. Furthermore, we demonstrated that S. pneumoniae disseminated from the lungs into the regional lymph nodes in a cell-independent manner and that this direct way of dissemination was much more efficient in the presence of DCs. We also provide evidence that S. pneumoniae induces expression and activation of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in cultured bone marrow-derived DCs. MMP-9 is a protease involved in the breakdown of extracellular matrix proteins and is critical for DC trafficking across extracellular matrix and basement membranes during the migration from the periphery to the lymph nodes. MMP-9 was also significantly up-regulated in the lungs of mice after intranasal infection with S. pneumoniae. Notably, the expression levels of MMP-9 in the infected lungs were significantly decreased after depletion of DCs suggesting the involvement of DCs in MMP-9 production during pneumococcal pneumonia. Thus, we propose that S. pneumoniae can exploit the DC-derived proteolysis to open tissue barriers thereby facilitating its own dissemination from the local site of infection.
Staphylococcus aureus can cause life-threatening diseases, and hospital- as well as community-associated antibiotic-resistant strains are an emerging global public health problem. Therefore, prophylactic vaccines or immune-based therapies are considered as alternative treatment opportunities. To develop such novel treatment approaches, a better understanding of the bacterial virulence and immune evasion mechanisms and their potential effects on immune-based therapies is essential. One important staphylococcal virulence factor is alpha-toxin, which is able to disrupt the epithelial barrier in order to establish infection. In addition, alpha-toxin has been reported to modulate other cell types including immune cells. Since CD4+ T cell-mediated immunity is required for protection against S. aureus infection, we were interested in the ability of alpha-toxin to directly modulate CD4+ T cells. To address this, murine naïve CD4+ T cells were differentiated in vitro into effector T cell subsets in the presence of alpha-toxin. Interestingly, alpha-toxin induced death of Th1-polarized cells, while cells polarized under Th17 conditions showed a high resistance toward increasing concentrations of this toxin. These effects could neither be explained by differential expression of the cellular alpha-toxin receptor ADAM10 nor by differential activation of caspases, but might result from an increased susceptibility of Th1 cells toward Ca2+-mediated activation-induced cell death. In accordance with the in vitro findings, an alpha-toxin-dependent decrease of Th1 and concomitant increase of Th17 cells was observed in vivo during S. aureus bacteremia. Interestingly, corresponding subsets of innate lymphoid cells and γδ T cells were similarly affected, suggesting a more general effect of alpha-toxin on the modulation of type 1 and type 3 immune responses. In conclusion, we have identified a novel alpha-toxin-dependent immunomodulatory strategy of S. aureus, which can directly act on CD4+ T cells and might be exploited for the development of novel immune-based therapeutic approaches to treat infections with antibiotic-resistant S. aureus strains.