Resumen de Prevenció de la propagació de resistència a antibiòtics via l'estudi estructural i molecular de proteïnes del plasmidi conjugatiu pls20
Antibiotic Resistance is considered one of the most important public health threats of the 21st century by the WHO. Due to human overuse and misuse of antibiotics, bacteria develop new mechanisms to survive in the presence of antibiotics. Once one bacterium has evolved the gene that endows resistance to it, there are several ways by which this trait can pass to neighbouring bacteria. This process is known as horizontal gene transfer and it is the main reason for the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. We can distinguish between three subtypes, conjugation being the most common one. Conjugation is the active transfer of genetic material from a donor bacterium to a recipient bacterium, involving direct cell-to-cell contact. It is characterized by the presence of a conjugative plasmid. In this work, we have studied the pLS20 conjugative plasmid, from Gram positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis. It is an interesting choice of research as Bacillus subtilis belongs to the phylum Firmicutes, which is the predominant pylum in human gut. The human gut has favourable conditions for conjugative gene exchange and therefore is a pool of antibiotic resistance genes. Also, pLS20 has biotechnological interest because of its occurrence in B. subtilis natto, which is important in food production. Understanding how conjugation is regulated and gathering information of the specific proteins that take part in the conjugative process is of extreme importance in order to stop antibiotic resistance spread. Consequently, this work is focused on the structural and molecular study of various pLS20 proteins. Firstly, the regulatory circuit that controls the expression of the genes of the main conjugation operon has been studied, in which Rco, Rap and Phr* take part. We have structurally characterized the tetramerization domain of Rco and realized it shares high structural resemblance with p53 family proteins. Also, we have determined that Rco has different oligomerization states under distinct pHs, probably due to the charged tetramerization interface. Furthermore, binding between Rapp and Rco at different stoichiometries and the effect of Phr* in the complex formation has been analyzed by size exclusion chromatography. With regard to Rap, the possibility of cross-regulation with other Rap systems has been considered and evaluated by binding assays. Secondly, we have studied Reg576, which is also a transcriptional regulator that controls the transctiption of the genes involved in the establishment of the plasmid once it has been transferred to the recipient cell. We have identified its binding region in DNA and mutated a conserved residue of the protein and determined that binding is not affected. Moreover, we have obtained diverse crystal packings and space groups of the proteins, revealing that Reg576 is a protein that tends to crystallize with relative ease. Finally, we have investigated P34, a protein involved in cell adhesion, which plays an equally important part in the overall success of plasmid transfer as does gene regulation. We have determined it is a TIE (thioester, isopeptide, esther) type of protein as we have structurally characterized its TED domain. Also, from the structure of a mutant where the thioester bond-forming cysteine was mutated to a serine, we conclude that there are no significant structural changes. However, we have observed drastic functionality changes: conjugation is inhibited for the mutant. Together, these results bring new important insights into how conjugation in the pLS20 plasmid is regulated and how cells contact each other to start the transfer of the genes. Given the importance of the proteins characterized, we do not discard the option of using these proteins as future drug targets to stop antibiotic resistance spread.
