Identification of a lipoteichoic acid glycosyltransferase enzyme reveals that GW-domain containing proteins can be retained in the cell wall of Listeria monocytogenes in the absence of lipoteichoic acid or its modifications
File(s)
Published version
Accepted version
Author(s)
Percy, M
Karinou, E
Webb, A
Grundling, A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne Gram-positive bacterial pathogen and many of its virulence factors are either secreted proteins, or proteins covalently or non-covalently-attached to the cell wall. Previous work has indicated that non-covalently-attached proteins with GW domains are retained in the cell wall by binding to the cell wall polymer lipoteichoic acid (LTA). LTA is a glycerolphosphate polymer, which is modified in L. monocytogenes with galactose and D-alanine residues. We identified Lmo0933 as the cytoplasmic glycosyltransferase required for the LTA glycosylation process and renamed the protein GtlA for glycosyltransferase LTA A. Using L. monocytogenes mutants lacking galactose or D-alanine modifications or the complete LTA polymer, we show that GW-domain proteins are still retained within the cell wall, indicating that other cell wall polymers are involved in the retention of GW-domain proteins. Further experiments reveal peptidoglycan as the binding receptor as a purified GW domainfusion protein can bind to L. monocytogenes cells lacking wall teichoic acid (WTA) as well as purified peptidoglycan derived from a wild-type or WTA-negative strain. With this, we not only identified the first enzyme involved in the LTA glycosylation process, but we also provide new insight into the binding mechanism of non-covalently attached cell wall proteins.
Date Issued
2016-05-16
Date Acceptance
2016-05-11
Citation
Journal of Bacteriology, 2016, 198 (15), pp.2029-2042
ISSN
1098-5530
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Start Page
2029
End Page
2042
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Bacteriology
Volume
198
Issue
15
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Percy et al.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
License URL
Sponsor
Wellcome Trust
Commission of the European Communities
Wellcome Trust
Grant Number
087732/Z/08/Z
260371
100289/Z/12/Z
Subjects
Microbiology
06 Biological Sciences
11 Medical And Health Sciences
07 Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences
Publication Status
Published