Search for microRNAs expressed by intracellular bacterial pathogens in infected mammalian cells.

Furuse, Yuki

Finethy, Ryan

Saka, Hector A

Xet-Mull, Ana M

Sisk, Dana M

Smith, Kristen L Jurcic

Lee, Sunhee

Coers, Jörn

Valdivia, Raphael H

Tobin, David M

Cullen, Bryan R

Rudel, Thomas

United States

2015-12-16T23:03:10Z

2014

MicroRNAs are expressed by all multicellular organisms and play a critical role as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. Moreover, different microRNA species are known to influence the progression of a range of different diseases, including cancer and microbial infections. A number of different human viruses also encode microRNAs that can attenuate cellular innate immune responses and promote viral replication, and a fungal pathogen that infects plants has recently been shown to express microRNAs in infected cells that repress host cell immune responses and promote fungal pathogenesis. Here, we have used deep sequencing of total expressed small RNAs, as well as small RNAs associated with the cellular RNA-induced silencing complex RISC, to search for microRNAs that are potentially expressed by intracellular bacterial pathogens and translocated into infected animal cells. In the case of Legionella and Chlamydia and the two mycobacterial species M. smegmatis and M. tuberculosis, we failed to detect any bacterial small RNAs that had the characteristics expected for authentic microRNAs, although large numbers of small RNAs of bacterial origin could be recovered. However, a third mycobacterial species, M. marinum, did express an ∼ 23-nt small RNA that was bound by RISC and derived from an RNA stem-loop with the characteristics expected for a pre-microRNA. While intracellular expression of this candidate bacterial microRNA was too low to effectively repress target mRNA species in infected cultured cells in vitro, artificial overexpression of this potential bacterial pre-microRNA did result in the efficient repression of a target mRNA. This bacterial small RNA therefore represents the first candidate microRNA of bacterial origin.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25184567

PONE-D-14-24223

1932-6203

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11186

eng

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

PLoS One

10.1371/journal.pone.0106434

Carboxypeptidases

Chlamydia

Gene Expression Regulation

High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing

Host-Pathogen Interactions

Humans

Immunity, Innate

Legionella

MicroRNAs

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

RNA, Bacterial

Search for microRNAs expressed by intracellular bacterial pathogens in infected mammalian cells.

Journal article

Coers, Jörn|0000-0001-8707-4608

Valdivia, Raphael H|0000-0003-0961-073X

Tobin, David M|0000-0003-3465-5518

Cullen, Bryan R|0000-0002-8638-6850

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25184567

e106434

9

Basic Science Departments

Clinical Science Departments

Duke

Duke Cancer Institute

Duke Human Vaccine Institute

Immunology

Institutes and Centers

Medicine

Medicine, Rheumatology and Immunology

Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

Pathology

School of Medicine

Published online

9