First insights into a type II toxin-antitoxin system from the clinical isolate Mycobacterium sp. MHSD3, similar to epsilon/zeta systems

Daniel Jaén-Luchoro; Francisco Aliaga-Lozano; Rosa Maria Gomila; Margarita Gomila; Francisco Salvà-Serra; Jorge Lalucat; Antoni Bennasar-Figueras

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189459

First insights into a type II toxin-antitoxin system from the clinical isolate Mycobacterium sp. MHSD3, similar to epsilon/zeta systems

PLoS One. 2017 Dec 13;12(12):e0189459. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189459. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Daniel Jaén-Luchoro^{1

2

3}, Francisco Aliaga-Lozano^{1

4}, Rosa Maria Gomila⁵, Margarita Gomila¹, Francisco Salvà-Serra^{1

2

3}, Jorge Lalucat^{1

6}, Antoni Bennasar-Figueras^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Microbiologia, Departament de Biologia, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
² Department of Infectious Diseases, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
³ Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) at University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
⁴ Laboratorio de Biología Molecular, Clínica Rotger, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
⁵ Serveis Cientifico-Tècnics, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
⁶ Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avançats (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB), Esporles, Spain.
⁷ Area de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto Universitario de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud (IUNICS-UIB), Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Abstract

A putative type II toxin-antitoxin (TA) system was found in the clinical isolate Mycobacterium sp. MHSD3, a strain closely related to Mycobacterium chelonae. Further analyses of the protein sequences of the two genes revealed the presence of domains related to a TA system. BLAST analyses indicated the presence of closely related proteins in the genomes of other recently published M. chelonae strains. The functionality of both elements of the TA system was demonstrated when expressed in Escherichia coli cells, and the predicted structure of the toxin is very similar to those of well-known zeta-toxins, leading to the definition of a type II TA system similar to epsilon/zeta TA systems in strains that are closely related to M. chelonae.

MeSH terms

Bacterial Toxins / metabolism*
Mycobacterium / chemistry*
Polymerase Chain Reaction

Substances

Bacterial Toxins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Spanish MINECO through projects CGL2012-39604 (with FEDER co-funding). M.G. was supported by a postdoctoral contract from the Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Universitats del Govern de les Illes Balears and the European Social Fund. F.S-S. was supported by the European Commission: Tailored-Treatment, project 602860, and by the Swedish Västra Götaland Regional Fund, project ALFGBG-437221. RMG was supported by a PTA contract from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competividad. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.