大肠杆菌的AcrAB-TolC多药外排泵及其调控研究进展

多药外排泵造成了细菌的多种药物的耐药现象, 这对感染性疾病的防治提出了挑战。对于多药外排泵的研究不仅使人们认识细菌耐药性机制, 而且为细菌耐药性的防治提供思路。大肠杆菌AcrAB-TolC外排泵系统的结构和调控机制研究取得了一些新进展, 这为病原菌的相关研究提供了参考, 本文对其进行了综述。     

鲍曼不动杆菌外排泵介导多药耐药性

鲍曼不动杆菌(Acinetobacter baumannii)是医院最常涉及的机会致病菌,主要引起肺炎、继发性脑膜炎、软组织以及血液感染等病症。随着全球广谱抗菌药物的广泛应用,该细菌极易对各种消毒剂和抗生素药物产生耐药性。因此,多药耐药(multidrug resistance,MDR)菌株不断增加,使得发病率和死亡率显著提高。引起鲍曼不动杆菌多药耐药性的重要原因之一是外排泵的存在,其介导多种化合物的外排,赋予菌株对消毒剂和抗生素药物的抗性。此外,还在细菌的运动及毒性相关方面发挥重要作用。本综述将主要讨论鲍曼不动杆菌的外排泵以及其对多药耐药性的影响,简要介绍6个外排泵家族:蛋白细菌抗菌化合物外排家族(proteobacterial antimicrobial compound efflux family,PACE)、耐药结节性细胞分化家族(resistance nodulation cell division family,RND)、小多重耐药家族(small multidrug resistance family,SMR)、主要协助转运蛋白超家族(major facilitator superfamily,MFS)、多药和毒性化合物外排家族(multidrug and toxic compound extrusion family,MATE)和ATP结合盒家族(ATP binding cassette family,ABC)的外排多种抗生素药物和消毒剂功能。其中,对最新发现的PACE家族和最常见的RND家族的表达调控机制及其外排作用进行重点阐述。此外,还简要介绍外排泵相关抑制剂的研究进展,为临床治疗鲍曼不动杆菌感染提供一些新思路。     

细菌耐多药外排泵的研究进展

近年来,由于抗生素的不合理及广泛使用,全球多重耐药菌和广泛耐药菌不断出现。关于细菌耐药机制中外排泵及生物膜形成的研究越来越受关注。研究发现,外排泵与生物膜形成有密切联系,不同细菌的不同外排泵对生物膜形成的影响各异,而生物膜形成又影响外排泵基因表达。本文就细菌耐多药外排泵的研究进展进行综述。     

革兰氏阴性菌多药外排泵MacAB-TolC的功能与结构

病原菌日益增长的多药耐药性已成为人类健康和生命的主要威胁之一。多药外排泵介导的药物主动外排是细菌产生耐药性的主要原因之一,给感染性疾病的防治带来了极大挑战。深入研究多药外排泵,了解其作用机制,揭示药物结合位点,可以为临床抗感染治疗提供新思路。在革兰氏阴性菌中,一些多药外排泵形成跨越细菌胞外被膜的三联复合物。MacAB-TolC是普遍存在于革兰氏阴性菌中的ABC家族三联外排泵,在近些年逐渐被关注。本文综述了关于MacAB-TolC外排泵的功能与结构研究以及相应抑制剂研发方面的进展。MacAB-TolC外排泵的底物种类多样,包含抗生素、毒力因子以及代谢产物。本文据此将MacAB-TolC外排泵的功能归纳为3类：耐药功能、病理功能和生理功能,并对相应功能分别进行了阐述。在结构研究方面,本文总结了MacAB-TolC外排泵单个组分的晶体结构和组装完全的MacAB-TolC三联外排泵的冷冻电镜单颗粒结构,并对结构数据所揭示的MacAB-TolC外排泵发挥功能的机制进行了论述。最后,本文介绍了MacAB-TolC外排泵抑制剂的最新研究进展,指出解析MacAB-TolC的原位结构,以及MacB结合底...     

细菌多药外排系统的研究进展

目前各种细菌的耐药性问题已引起了科学家们的广泛关注,细菌的多药外排系统是引起细菌多药耐药的主要原因之一。本文着重介绍了与多药耐药相关的两大类多药外排系统(ABC型多药外排系统和次级多药外排系统)各家族成员的结构特点、表达调控和底物范围,以及解决多药外排系统引起耐药性的几项措施。     

外排泵介导鲍曼不动杆菌耐药性的研究进展

目的鲍曼不动杆菌的多重耐药性问题日趋严重,该菌外膜上外排泵过表达是导致其耐药性的重要机制。详尽地研究多药外排泵的机制以及寻找阻断其功能的外排泵抑制剂,将为多耐药鲍曼不动杆菌的治疗开辟新的路径。本文就近年来鲍曼不动杆菌外排泵的研究现状进行综述,着重描述多药外排泵RND家族的耐药谱特征及其表达调控机制,同时,还阐述了MFS和MATE家族外排泵的研究进展。     

肠杆菌科AcrAB多药外排泵分子演化分析

目的：分析肠杆菌科AcrAB多药外排泵的分子演化规律,为多药耐药性病原菌的防治提供基础数据。方法：从NCBI获得肠杆菌科物种AcrAB多药外排泵相关蛋白和核酸序列,采用分析软件,分析肠杆菌科物种AcrAB多药外排泵相关序列。结果：在肠杆菌科各物种AcrA、AcrB和AcrR与大肠埃希氏菌同源性在55%、75%和43%以上。AcrA保守位点分散,在N端和C端较少,在分子一级结构中段较多。AcrB跨膜序列保守性较高,与质子转移相关的三个位点D407、D408和K940以及稳定这三者结构的T978在肠杆菌科完全保守,其一级结构上相邻位点也保守。AcrR序列整体保守性较低,但HTH区域保守性高。与AcrR结合的回文结构及周围序列保守性高,在＂茎＂结构中仅存在一个氨基酸的差异。结论：AcrAB多药外排泵在肠杆菌科中广泛存在,有一定的保守性。分析肠杆菌科AcrAB多药外排泵有助于病原菌多药耐药性的防治。     

嗜麦芽窄食单胞菌外排泵的研究进展

嗜麦芽窄食单胞菌为机会致病菌,是医院内感染的一个重要致病菌,据报道,该菌对临床使用的多数抗生素都有耐药性,耐β－内酰胺类,氨基糖苷类和大环内酯类药物,多重外排泵是嗜麦芽窄食单胞菌固有和获得性多重耐药的最重要原因,该菌参与抗生素和多种毒性物质外排的泵系统为SmeDEF和SmeABC。     

蛋白激酶C对多药耐药调控作用

化疗是目前治疗恶性肿瘤的主要手段之一 ,尽管新的抗癌药物及化疗方案不断推出 ,但治疗效果仍无显著提高 ,其主要原因之一是肿瘤细胞对化疗药物产生多药耐药 (ｍｕｌ ｔｉｄｒｕｇｒｅｓｉｓｔａｎｃｅ ,ＭＤＲ)。ＭＤＲ是指对一种药物耐药的肿瘤 ,同时对另一些与之化学结构、作用机制完全不同的药物产生交叉耐药。其发生机制复杂 ,其中ｍｄｒ1基因编码的Ｐ 糖蛋白 (Ｐ ＧＰ)表达是ＭＤＲ产生的主要机制之一。近年来的研究表明 ,蛋白激酶Ｃ(ｐｒｏｔｅｉｎｋｉｎａｓｅＣ ,ＰＫＣ)参与了调控ＭＤＲ形成过程。蛋白激酶Ｃ是一种钙离子、磷脂依…     

革兰氏阴性菌AcrAB-TolC多药外排泵结构数据对抑制剂研发的启示

革兰氏阴性菌的多重耐药性已成为全球广泛聚焦的问题。近年研究发现,耐药结节细胞分化(resistance-nodulation-cell division,RND)家族外排泵的过表达,与革兰氏阴性菌的多重耐药性密切相关。在RND家族中,广泛存在于革兰氏阴性菌中的AcrAB-TolC外排泵被认为是导致多重耐药性的主要原因之一。为了开发有效的抑制剂,需要对AcrAB-TolC外排泵的结构有一个清晰的认识。以往对该外排泵结构的研究主要局限于体外采用X射线晶体学技术或冷冻电镜单颗粒分析技术来解析其单个组分或全泵的结构。细胞冷冻电子断层扫描技术为揭示AcrAB-TolC外排泵在天然细胞膜环境中的组装和运行机制提供了新的见解,本文综述了AcrAB-TolC不同层级的结构数据在研发外排泵抑制剂方面的贡献。     

Multidrug Efflux Pump MdtBC of Escherichia coli Is Active Only as a B2C Heterotrimer

RND (resistance-nodulation-division) family transporters in Gram-negative bacteria frequently pump out a wide range of inhibitors and often contribute to multidrug resistance to antibiotics and biocides. An archetypal RND pump of Escherichia coli, AcrB, is known to exist as a homotrimer, and this construction is essential for drug pumping through the functionally rotating mechanism. MdtBC, however, appears different because two pump genes coexist within a single operon, and genetic deletion data suggest that both pumps must be expressed in order for the drug efflux to occur. We have expressed the corresponding genes, with one of them in a His-tagged form. Copurification of MdtB and MdtC under these conditions showed that they form a complex, with an average stoichiometry of 2:1. Unequivocal evidence that only the trimer containing two B protomers and one C protomer is active was obtained by expressing all possible combinations of B and C in covalently linked forms. Finally, conversion into alanine of the residues, known to form a proton translocation pathway in AcrB, inactivated transport only when made in MdtB, not when made in MdtC, a result suggesting that MdtC plays a different role not directly involved in drug binding and extrusion.Bacterial multidrug resistance is a major public health problem (10, 17). One widespread resistance mechanism involves the multidrug resistance (MDR) transporters. Among these, the resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND) family transporters, such as the AcrAB-TolC system in Escherichia coli, play a major role in drug resistance in Gram-negative bacteria because they allow the direct extrusion of drug molecules into extracellular space, and because they sometimes confer an increased level of tolerance to an astonishingly wide range of toxic compounds (18). In general, an RND-type exporter protein (such as AcrB), located in the inner membrane, forms a tripartite complex with a periplasmic adaptor protein, such as AcrA, and a homotrimeric outer membrane channel, such as TolC (18). The drug efflux process requires the presence of all three components. The crystallographic structures of AcrB (13, 14, 22, 24), AcrA (11, 27), and TolC (2, 8) are known, and models of the tripartite complex have been proposed (6, 27).AcrB is a homotrimeric transporter (14) located in the inner membrane and uses the proton gradient as the energy source (31). The homotrimeric structure is thought to be functionally important, or even essential, as each protomer appears to undergo a series of mandatory conformational alterations during the process of drug export, often called “functionally rotating mechanism,” as deduced from the structure of the asymmetric trimers of AcrB (13, 22, 24). This mechanism was also supported by the observation that, in a trimer in which protomers were covalently linked to each other, inactivation of one protomer alone abolishes the activity of the entire trimeric complex (29).Not all RND-type transporters, however, follow this homotrimeric organization. The mdtABC genes of E. coli encode an RND system that is unusual in that it contains two different RND pump genes, mdtB and mdtC, in addition to its own adaptor gene, mdtA. Previous genetic studies have demonstrated that the deletion of either of the two RND pump genes abolishes (1) the resistance to β-lactams, novobiocin, and bile salt derivatives, like deoxycholate, or narrows the range of pump substrates (15), a result suggesting that the functional unit is likely a heteromultimeric pump formed by MdtB/MdtC proteins. However, no direct data have so far been presented supporting the interaction between these proteins or the stoichiometry of the complex. Because the heterooligomeric composition of this pump was unexpected based on the accepted notion of how the homotrimeric pump functions by the functionally rotating mechanism, we examined here the nature of the MdtBC complex in detail.In this study, we first purified the oligomeric transporter by labeling either MdtB or MdtC with a His tag. We obtained a trimeric complex(es) containing both MdtB and MdtC in an approximately 2:1 ratio. However, we could not rule out the possibility that there were mixtures of trimers containing different ratios of the B and C proteins. We therefore utilized the recently introduced technology of creating covalently linked trimers (29), and we show here that the only active trimers are those containing two units of MdtB and one unit of MdtC.     

AcrA, AcrB, and TolC of Escherichia coli Form a Stable Intermembrane Multidrug Efflux Complex

Many transporters of Gram-negative bacteria involved in the extracellular secretion of proteins and the efflux of toxic molecules operate by forming intermembrane complexes. These complexes are proposed to span both inner and outer membranes and create a bridge across the periplasm. In this study, we analyzed interactions between the inner and outer membrane components of the tri-partite multidrug efflux pump AcrAB-TolC from Escherichia coli. We found that, once assembled, the intermembrane AcrAB-TolC complex is stable during the separation of the inner and outer membranes and subsequent purification. All three components of the complex co-purify when the affinity tag is attached to either of the proteins suggesting bi-partite interactions between AcrA, AcrB, and TolC. We show that antibiotics, the substrates of AcrAB-TolC, stabilize interactions within the complex. However, the formation of the AcrAB-TolC complex does not require an input of energy.     

Salt-Inducible Multidrug Efflux Pump Protein in the Moderately Halophilic Bacterium Chromohalobacter sp.

It has been known that halophilic bacteria often show natural resistance to antibiotics, dyes, and toxic metal ions, but the mechanism and regulation of this resistance have remained unexplained. We have addressed this question by identifying the gene responsible for multidrug resistance. A spontaneous ofloxacin-resistant mutant derived from the moderately halophilic bacterium Chromohalobacter sp. strain 160 showed a two- to fourfold increased resistance to structurally diverse compounds, such as tetracycline, cefsulodin, chloramphenicol, and ethidium bromide (EtBr), and tolerance to organic solvents, e.g., hexane and heptane. The mutant produced an elevated level of the 58-kDa outer membrane protein. This mutant (160R) accumulated about one-third the level of EtBr that the parent cells did. An uncoupler, carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone, caused a severalfold increase in the intracellular accumulation of EtBr, with the wild-type and mutant cells accumulating nearly equal amounts. The hrdC gene encoding the 58-kDa outer membrane protein has been cloned. Disruption of this gene rendered the cells hypersusceptible to antibiotics and EtBr and led to a high level of accumulation of intracellular EtBr. The primary structure of HrdC has a weak similarity to that of Escherichia coli TolC. Interestingly, both drug resistance and the expression of HrdC were markedly increased in the presence of a high salt concentration in the growth medium, but this was not observed in hrdC-disrupted cells. These results indicate that HrdC is the outer membrane component of the putative efflux pump assembly and that it plays a major role in the observed induction of drug resistance by salt in this bacterium.     

Structure of the Tripartite Multidrug Efflux Pump AcrAB-TolC Suggests an Alternative Assembly Mode

Escherichia coli AcrAB-TolC is a multidrug efflux pump that expels a wide range of toxic substrates. The dynamic nature of the binding or low affinity between the components has impeded elucidation of how the three components assemble in the functional state. Here, we created fusion proteins composed of AcrB, a transmembrane linker, and two copies of AcrA. The fusion protein exhibited acridine pumping activity, suggesting that the protein reflects the functional structure in vivo. To discern the assembling mode with TolC, the AcrBA fusion protein was incubated with TolC or a chimeric protein containing the TolC aperture tip region. Three-dimensional structures of the complex proteins were determined through transmission electron microscopy. The overall structure exemplifies the adaptor bridging model, wherein the funnel-like AcrA hexamer forms an intermeshing cogwheel interaction with the α-barrel tip region of TolC, and a direct interaction between AcrB and TolC is not allowed. These observations provide a structural blueprint for understanding multidrug resistance in pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria.     

Efflux of beta-galactosidase products from Escherichia coli.

Several different strains of Escherichia coli were grown on a variety of carbon sources under various growth conditions. Lactose was added (usually at mid-log phase), and the concentrations of the products of beta-galactosidase action on this sugar (galactose, glucose, and allolactose) were determined at various times thereafter in the total culture and in the medium. It was found that with each strain, with all carbon sources, and under all of the conditions studied, a very large proportion of the products were found in the medium. Control studies were carried out which showed that these results were not artifacts of the method of separating the cells from the medium. The results also did not arise from the secretion of beta-galactosidase into the medium, from the diffusion of substrates and products into and out of the cells due to leaks in the membrane, or from faults in the method of sugar analysis. In addition, the results showed that there were very high levels of products inside the cells under the conditions used and that the efflux of the products was rapid. The efflux might be energetically advantageous to the cell as well as being a means of storing excess products until needed.     

Functionally Cloned pdrM from Streptococcus pneumoniae Encodes a Na+ Coupled Multidrug Efflux Pump

Multidrug efflux pumps play an important role as a self-defense system in bacteria. Bacterial multidrug efflux pumps are classified into five families based on structure and coupling energy: resistance−nodulation−cell division (RND), small multidrug resistance (SMR), major facilitator (MF), ATP binding cassette (ABC), and multidrug and toxic compounds extrusion (MATE). We cloned a gene encoding a MATE-type multidrug efflux pump from Streptococcus pneumoniae R6, and designated it pdrM. PdrM showed sequence similarity with NorM from Vibrio parahaemolyticus, YdhE from Escherichia coli, and other bacterial MATE-type multidrug efflux pumps. Heterologous expression of PdrM let to elevated resistance to several antibacterial agents, norfloxacin, acriflavine, and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) in E. coli KAM32 cells. PdrM effluxes acriflavine and DAPI in a Na⁺- or Li⁺-dependent manner. Moreover, Na⁺ efflux via PdrM was observed when acriflavine was added to Na⁺-loaded cells expressing pdrM. Therefore, we conclude that PdrM is a Na⁺/drug antiporter in S. pneumoniae. In addition to pdrM, we found another two genes, spr1756 and spr1877,that met the criteria of MATE-type by searching the S. pneumoniae genome database. However, cloned spr1756 and spr1877 did not elevate the MIC of any of the investigated drugs. mRNA expression of spr1756, spr1877, and pdrM was detected in S. pneumoniae R6 under laboratory growth conditions. Therefore, spr1756 and spr1877 are supposed to play physiological roles in this growth condition, but they may be unrelated to drug resistance.