UpaH Is a Newly Identified Autotransporter Protein That Contributes to Biofilm Formation and Bladder Colonization by Uropathogenic Escherichia coli CFT073

• DOI: 10.1128/iai.01010-09
• Publication Date: 2010-02-10T05:06:30Z
• Authors: Luke P. Allsopp; Makrina Totsika; Jai J. Tree; Glen C. Ulett; Amanda N. Mabbett; Timothy J. Wells; Bostjan Kobe; Scott A. Beatson; Mark A. Schembri
• Keywords: DNA, Bacterial; 0301 basic medicine; 570; Biomedical and clinical sciences; Medical bacteriology; 572; Virulence Factors; Molecular Sequence Data; Urinary Bladder; 2405 Parasitology; Urinary-tract-infections; Protein Structure, Secondary; Mice; 03 medical and health sciences; veterinary and food sciences; Animals; Humans; Uropathogenic Escherichia coli; Cloning, Molecular; Agricultural; 2403 Immunology; Bacterial adhesins; Crystal-structures; Medical microbiology not elsewhere classified; Escherichia coli Proteins; 2404 Microbiology; 2725 Infectious Diseases; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Protein Structure, Tertiary; 3. Good health; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Biological sciences; Disease Models, Animal; Antigen-43-mediated autoaggregation; Biofilms; Urinary Tract Infections; Female; Gene Deletion

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli is the primary cause of urinary tract infection (UTI) in developed world. The major factors associated with virulence uropathogenic E. (UPEC) are fimbrial adhesins, which mediate specific attachment to host receptors and trigger innate responses. Another group adhesins represented by autotransporter (AT) subgroup proteins. In this study, we identified a new AT-encoding gene, termed upaH , present 6.5-kb unannotated intergenic region genome prototypic UPEC strain CFT073. Cloning sequencing gene from CFT073 revealed an intact 8.535-kb coding region, contrary published sequence. was widely distributed among large collection isolates as well Reference (ECOR) collection. Bioinformatic analyses suggest β-helix predominant structure N-terminal passenger (α) domain 12-strand β-barrel for C-terminal β-domain UpaH. We demonstrated that UpaH expressed at cell surface promotes biofilm formation. mouse UTI model, deletion two other strains did not significantly affect colonization bladder single-challenge experiments. However, competitive experiments, outcompeted its isogenic mutant urine bladder.