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Characterization of peptidoglycan hydrolase in Cag pathogenicity island of Helicobacter pylori

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Abstract

The Cag Type IV secretion apparatus proteins in Helicobacter pylori can mediate the injection of effector CagA protein into eukaryotic target cells. Although this apparatus forms an important pathway for bacterium–host interaction, its assembly process in vivo is poorly understood, and the proteins which contribute to break the bacterial cell walls in Cag-PAI have not yet been identified. The cagγ gene in Cag-PAI is a unique member that contains a conserved SLT catalysis domain, which makes it an attracting question whether cagy gene has the capacity to digest the bacterial cell wall. In the current study, therefore, the cagγ gene was cloned from the H. pylori NCTC 11637 and expressed in Escherichia coli, and its lytic effect on cell walls in vitro was observed. Results indicated that Cagγ protein has a lytic activity against bacterial cell walls. An allelic-exchange mutant (Δcagγ) was further constructed to investigate the relationship between Cagγ and effector CagA translocation. These results suggested that Cagγ contributed to the assembly of Cag Type IV secretion apparatus by digesting the peptidoglycan meshwork of bacterial cell walls.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Seung-chul Baik (Gyeongsang National University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea) for kindly providing us the suicide plasmid pBlue-KM40 and technical assistant for mutant construct of H. pylori. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 30870096) and the Natural Science Foundation for college in Jiangsu Province (08KJB310001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, School of Medical Science and Laboratory Medicine, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, 212013, China

    Qiao Zhong, Shihe Shao, Runhong Mu, Hua Wang & Shiteng Huang

  2. Institute for Life Science, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Jun Han, He Huang & Shuwei Tian

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  1. Qiao Zhong
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  2. Shihe Shao
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  3. Runhong Mu
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  4. Hua Wang
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Correspondence to Shihe Shao.

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Zhong, Q., Shao, S., Mu, R. et al. Characterization of peptidoglycan hydrolase in Cag pathogenicity island of Helicobacter pylori . Mol Biol Rep 38, 503–509 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-010-0134-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-010-0134-y

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