Quorum sensing of Acinetobacter nosocomialis for cell-to-cell communication produces N-3-hydroxy dodecanoyl-DL-homoserine lactone (OH-dDHL) by an AnoR/I two-component system. However, OH-dDHL-driven apoptotic mechanisms in hosts have not been clearly defined. Here, we investigated the induction of apoptosis signaling pathways in bone marrow-derived macrophages treated with synthetic OH-dDHL. Moreover, the quorum-sensing system for virulence regulation was evaluated in vivo using wild-type and anoI-deletion mutant strains. OH-dDHL decreased the viability of macrophage and epithelial cells in dose- and time-dependent manners. OH-dDHL induced Ca2+ efflux and caspase-12 activation by ER stress transmembrane protein (IRE1 and ATF6a p50) aggregation and induced mitochondrial dysfunction through reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, which caused cytochrome c to leak. Pretreatment with a pan-caspase inhibitor reduced caspase-3, -8, and -9, which were activated by OH-dDHL. Pro-inflammatory cytokine and paraoxonase-2 (PON2) gene expression were increased by OH-dDHL. We showed that the anoI-deletion mutant strains have less intracellular invasion compared to the wild-type strain, and their virulence, such as colonization and dissemination, was decreased in vivo. Consequently, these findings revealed that OH-dDHL, as a virulence factor, contributes to bacterial infection and survival as well as the modification of host responses in the early stages of infection.
Keywords: A. nosocomialis; OH-dDHL; apoptosis; quorum sensing; virulence.