Compromised base excision repair pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis imparts superior adaptability in the host

PLoS Pathog. 2021 Mar 19;17(3):e1009452. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009452. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a significant public health concern, exacerbated by the emergence of drug-resistant TB. To combat the host's dynamic environment, Mtb encodes multiple DNA repair enzymes that play a critical role in maintaining genomic integrity. Mtb possesses a GC-rich genome, rendering it highly susceptible to cytosine deaminations, resulting in the occurrence of uracils in the DNA. UDGs encoded by ung and udgB initiate the repair; hence we investigated the biological impact of deleting UDGs in the adaptation of pathogen. We generated gene replacement mutants of uracil DNA glycosylases, individually (RvΔung, RvΔudgB) or together (RvΔdKO). The double KO mutant, RvΔdKO exhibited remarkably higher spontaneous mutation rate, in the presence of antibiotics. Interestingly, RvΔdKO showed higher survival rates in guinea pigs and accumulated large number of SNPs as revealed by whole-genome sequence analysis. Competition assays revealed the superior fitness of RvΔdKO over Rv, both in ex vivo and in vivo conditions. We propose that compromised DNA repair results in the accumulation of mutations, and a subset of these drives adaptation in the host. Importantly, this property allowed us to utilize RvΔdKO for the facile identification of drug targets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adaptation, Physiological / genetics*
  • Animals
  • DNA Repair / physiology*
  • Guinea Pigs
  • Host Specificity / genetics*
  • Mice
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis / genetics*

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (BT/PR13522/COE/34/27/2015) to VKN & UV; J.C Bose fellowship (JCB/2019/000015) to VKN & (SR/S2/JCB-63/2007) to UV provided by Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology. National Institute of Immunology (NII) Core funding to VKN. DBT-IISc partnership program, and DST-FIST level II funding to UV. The Jamsetji Tata Trust funding to UV. CSIR-Senior Research Fellowship to SN. SN is an SRF in JCB/2019/000015 fellowship of VKN. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.