Correlating Chlamydia trachomatis infectious load with urogenital ecological success and disease pathogenesis

The association of infectious burden of Chlamydia trachomatis with patient characteristics and clinical disease may have implications for understanding disease pathogenesis. We examined chlamydial load from 171 urine samples where load was based on copy number of organisms per copy number of eukaryotic cells derived by real-time quantitative PCR. High- (E, F, G) and low-prevalence (Ia, H, J, Ja) genotypes in the population had similar loads, suggesting a similar propensity for replicating in vivo, despite their differential ecological success. Symptomatic and asymptomatic patients also had similar chlamydial loads, indicating that virulence differences are likely not associated with variations in replication. There was a significant difference in genotypes by age for F (<31 years; P = 0.031) and for H where the mean age was lower than for the most prevalent genotype, E (P=0.013). Also, men had a significantly lower load than women when the genotype was F (P=0.042), although there was no significant difference in load between partners. Patients with recurrent chlamydial infections had a significant reduction in load with each subsequent episode regardless of genotype (P=0.007), suggesting that immune defenses do not block chlamydial entry but may impact replication. Additionally, the probability of being infected with J was 7.7-fold higher in patients with prior chlamydial infections (P=0.016), and although the loads were lower when compared with patients without prior infection, the results did not reach statistical significance. These findings suggest that chlamydial burden could be an important marker for recurrence and host immune response, which would facilitate pathogenesis research.     

A versatile conformational switch regulates reactivity in human branched-chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase

The dehydrogenase/decarboxylase (E1b) component of the 4 MD human branched-chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase complex (BCKDC) is a thiamin diphosphate (ThDP)-dependent enzyme. We have determined the crystal structures of E1b with ThDP bound intermediates after decarboxylation of alpha-ketoacids. We show that a key tyrosine residue in the E1b active site functions as a conformational switch to reduce the reactivity of the ThDP cofactor through interactions with its thiazolium ring. The intermediates do not assume the often-postulated enamine state, but likely a carbanion state. The carbanion presumably facilitates the second E1b-catalyzed reaction, involving the transfer of an acyl moiety from the intermediate to a lipoic acid prosthetic group in the transacylase (E2b) component of the BCKDC. The tyrosine switch further remodels an E1b loop region to promote E1b binding to E2b. Our results illustrate the versatility of the tyrosine switch in coordinating the catalytic events in E1b by modulating the reactivity of reaction intermediates.     

Testosterone related to age and life-history stages in male baboons and geladas

Despite significant advances in our knowledge of how testosterone mediates life-history trade-offs, this research has primarily focused on seasonal taxa. We know comparatively little about the relationship between testosterone and life-history stages for non-seasonally breeding species. Here we examine testosterone profiles across the life span of males from three non-seasonally breeding primates: yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus or P. hamadryas cynocephalus), chacma baboons (Papio ursinus or P. h. ursinus), and geladas (Theropithecus gelada). First, we predict that testosterone profiles will track the reproductive profiles of each taxon across their respective breeding years. Second, we evaluate age-related changes in testosterone to determine whether several life-history transitions are associated with these changes. Subjects include males (> 2.5 years) from wild populations of each taxon from whom we had fecal samples for hormone determination. Although testosterone profiles across taxa were broadly similar, considerable variability was found in the timing of two major changes: (1) the attainment of adult levels of testosterone and (2) the decline in testosterone after the period of maximum production. Attainment of adult testosterone levels was delayed by 1 year in chacmas compared with yellows and geladas. With respect to the decline in testosterone, geladas and chacmas exhibited a significant drop after 3 years of maximum production, while yellows declined so gradually that no significant annual drop was ever detected. For both yellows and chacmas, increases in testosterone production preceded elevations in social dominance rank. We discuss these differences in the context of ecological and behavioral differences exhibited by these taxa.     

Interferon Gamma Release Assays for the Diagnosis of Latent TB Infection in HIV-Infected Individuals in a Low TB Burden Country

Background

Interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) are used to diagnose latent tuberculosis infection. Two IGRAs are commercially available: the Quantiferon TB Gold In Tube (QFT-IT) and the T-SPOT.TB. There is debate as to which test to use in HIV+ individuals. Previous publications from high TB burden countries have raised concerns that the sensitivity of the QFT-IT assay, but not the T-SPOT.TB, may be impaired in HIV+ individuals with low CD4+ T-cell counts. We sought to compare the tests in a low TB burden setting.

Methodology/Principal Findings

T-SPOT.TB, QFT-IT, and tuberculin skin tests (TST) were performed in HIV infected individuals. Results were related to patient characteristics. McNemar’s test, multivariate regression and correlation analysis were carried out using SPSS (SPSS Inc). 256 HIV infected patients were enrolled in the study. The median CD4+ T-cell count was 338 cells/µL (range 1–1328). 37 (14%) patients had a CD4+ T-cell count of <100 cells/µL. 46/256 (18% ) of QFT-IT results and 28/256 (11%) of T-SPOT.TB results were positive. 6 (2%) of QFT-IT and 18 (7%) of T-SPOT.TB results were indeterminate. An additional 9 (4%) of T-SPOT.TB results were unavailable as tests were not performed due to insufficient cells or clotting of the sample. We found a statistically significant association between lower CD4+ T-cell count and negative QFT-IT results (OR 1.055, p = 0.03), and indeterminate/unavailable T-SPOT.TB results (OR 1.079, p = 0.02).

Conclusions/Significance

In low TB prevalence settings, the QFT-IT yields more positive and fewer indeterminate results than T-SPOT.TB. Negative results on the QFT-IT and indeterminate/unavailable results on the T-SPOT.TB were more common in individuals with low CD4+ T-cell counts.     

Anomalies in the motion dynamics of long-flagella mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has long been used as a model organism in studies of cell motility and flagellar dynamics. The motility of the well-conserved ‘9+2’ axoneme in its flagella remains a subject of immense curiosity. Using high-speed videography and morphological analyses, we have characterized long-flagella mutants (lf1, lf2-1, lf2-5, lf3-2, and lf4) of C. reinhardtii for biophysical parameters such as swimming velocities, waveforms, beat frequencies, and swimming trajectories. These mutants are aberrant in proteins involved in the regulation of flagellar length and bring about a phenotypic increase in this length. Our results reveal that the flagellar beat frequency and swimming velocity are negatively correlated with the length of the flagella. When compared to the wild-type, any increase in the flagellar length reduces both the swimming velocities (by 26–57%) and beat frequencies (by 8–16%). We demonstrate that with no apparent aberrations/ultrastructural deformities in the mutant axonemes, it is this increased length that has a critical role to play in the motion dynamics of C. reinhardtii cells, and, provided there are no significant changes in their flagellar proteome, any increase in this length compromises the swimming velocity either by reduction of the beat frequency or by an alteration in the waveform of the flagella.     

Flagella and pili-mediated near-surface single-cell motility mechanisms in P. aeruginosa

Bacterial biofilms are structured multicellular communities that are responsible for a broad range of infections. Knowing how free-swimming bacteria adapt their motility mechanisms near a surface is crucial for understanding the transition from the planktonic to the biofilm phenotype. By translating microscopy movies into searchable databases of bacterial behavior and developing image-based search engines, we were able to identify fundamental appendage-specific mechanisms for the surface motility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Type IV pili mediate two surface motility mechanisms: horizontally oriented crawling, by which the bacterium moves lengthwise with high directional persistence, and vertically oriented walking, by which the bacterium moves with low directional persistence and high instantaneous velocity, allowing it to rapidly explore microenvironments. The flagellum mediates two additional motility mechanisms: near-surface swimming and surface-anchored spinning, which often precedes detachment from a surface. Flagella and pili interact cooperatively in a launch sequence whereby bacteria change orientation from horizontal to vertical and then detach. Vertical orientation facilitates detachment from surfaces and thereby influences biofilm morphology.     

Structural and thermodynamic basis for weak interactions between dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase and subunit-binding domain of the branched-chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase complex

The purified mammalian branched-chain α-ketoacid dehydrogenase complex (BCKDC), which catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of branched-chain α-keto acids, is essentially devoid of the constituent dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase component (E3). The absence of E3 is associated with the low affinity of the subunit-binding domain of human BCKDC (hSBDb) for hE3. In this work, sequence alignments of hSBDb with the E3-binding domain (E3BD) of the mammalian pyruvate dehydrogenase complex show that hSBDb has an arginine at position 118, where E3BD features an asparagine. Substitution of Arg-118 with an asparagine increases the binding affinity of the R118N hSBDb variant (designated hSBDb*) for hE3 by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. The enthalpy of the binding reaction changes from endothermic with the wild-type hSBDb to exothermic with the hSBDb* variant. This higher affinity interaction allowed the determination of the crystal structure of the hE3/hSBDb* complex to 2.4-Å resolution. The structure showed that the presence of Arg-118 poses a unique, possibly steric and/or electrostatic incompatibility that could impede E3 interactions with the wild-type hSBDb. Compared with the E3/E3BD structure, the hE3/hSBDb* structure has a smaller interfacial area. Solution NMR data corroborated the interactions of hE3 with Arg-118 and Asn-118 in wild-type hSBDb and mutant hSBDb*, respectively. The NMR results also showed that the interface between hSBDb and hE3 does not change significantly from hSBDb to hSBDb*. Taken together, our results represent a starting point for explaining the long standing enigma that the E2b core of the BCKDC binds E3 far more weakly relative to other α-ketoacid dehydrogenase complexes.