Phosphate starvation enhances phagocytosis of Mycobacterium bovis/BCG by macrophages.

BMC Immunology
Patricia Espinosa-CuetoRaul Mancilla

Abstract

Tuberculosis is an important health problem worldwide. The only available vaccine is M. bovis/BCG, an attenuated mycobacterium that activates the innate and the acquired immune system after being phagocytosed by macrophages and dendritic cells. Vaccination fails to prevent adult pulmonary tuberculosis although it may have a protective effect in childhood infection. Understanding how BCG interacts with macrophages and other immunocompetent cells is crucial to develop new vaccines. In this study we showed that macrophages phagocytose M. bovis/BCG bacilli with higher efficiency when they are cultured without phosphate. We isolated mycobacterial membranes to search for mycobacterial molecules that could be involved in these processes; by immunoblot, it was found that the plasma membranes of phosphate-deprived bacilli express the adhesins PstS-1, LpqH, LprG, and the APA antigen. These proteins are not detected in membranes of bacilli grown with usual amounts of phosphate. The interest of our observations is to show that under the metabolic stress implied in phosphate deprivation, mycobacteria respond upregulating adhesins that could improve their capacity to infect macrophages. These observations are relevant to understand how M. bo...Continue Reading

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
fluorescence activated cell sorting
FACS
electrophoresis
flow cytometry
protein assay

Software Mentioned

FlowJo

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