Epinephrine affects gene expression levels and has a complex effect on biofilm formation in M icrococcus luteus strain C01 isolated from human skin

A V Gannesen; M I Schelkunov; O V Geras'kina; N E Makarova; M V Sukhacheva; N D Danilova; M A Ovcharova; S V Mart'yanov; T A Pankratov; D S Muzychenko; M V Zhurina; A V Feofanov; E A Botchkova; V K Plakunov

doi:10.1016/j.bioflm.2021.100058

Epinephrine affects gene expression levels and has a complex effect on biofilm formation in M icrococcus luteus strain C01 isolated from human skin

Biofilm. 2021 Oct 21:3:100058. doi: 10.1016/j.bioflm.2021.100058. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

A V Gannesen¹, M I Schelkunov^{2

3}, O V Geras'kina⁴, N E Makarova², M V Sukhacheva¹, N D Danilova¹, M A Ovcharova¹, S V Mart'yanov¹, T A Pankratov¹, D S Muzychenko¹, M V Zhurina¹, A V Feofanov^{4

5}, E A Botchkova¹, V K Plakunov¹

Affiliations

¹ Federal Research Center "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
² Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia.
³ Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow, Russia.
⁴ Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
⁵ Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

In this study, the effect of epinephrine on the biofilm formation of Micrococcus luteus C01 isolated from human skin was investigated in depth for the first time. This hormone has a complex effect on biofilms in various systems. In a system with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) cubes, treatment with epinephrine at a physiological concentration of 4.9 × 10^-9 M increased the total amount of 72-h biofilm biomass stained with crystal violet and increased the metabolic activity of biofilms, but at higher and lower concentrations, the treatment had no significant effect. On glass fiber filters, treatment with the hormone decreased the number of colony forming units (CFUs) and changed the aggregation but did not affect the metabolic activity of biofilm cells. In glass bottom plates examined by confocal microscopy, epinephrine notably inhibited the growth of biofilms. RNA-seq analysis and RT-PCR demonstrated reproducible upregulation of genes encoding Fe-S cluster assembly factors and cyanide detoxification sulfurtransferase, whereas genes encoding the co-chaperone GroES, the LysE superfamily of lysine exporters, short-chain alcohol dehydrogenase and the potential c-di-GMP phosphotransferase were downregulated. Our results suggest that epinephrine may stimulate matrix synthesis in M. luteus biofilms, thereby increasing the activity of NAD(H) oxidoreductases. Potential c-di-GMP pathway proteins are essential in these processes.

Keywords: Biofilms; Confocal microscopy; Epinephrine; Human-microbiota interaction; Micrococcus luteus; RNA-seq; Skin microbiota; Transcriptomics; qPCR.