Jennifer R. Robbins

Placental syncytiotrophoblast constitutes a major barrier to vertical transmission of Listeria monocytogenes.

Listeria monocytogenes is an important cause of maternal-fetal infections and serves as a model organism to study these important but poorly understood events. L. monocytogenes can infect non-phagocytic cells by two means: direct invasion and cell-to-cell spread. The relative contribution of each method to placental infection is controversial, as is the anatomical site of invasion. Here, we report for the first time the use of first trimester placental organ cultures to quantitatively analyze L. monocytogenes infection of the human placenta. Contrary to previous reports, we found that the syncytiotrophoblast, which constitutes most of the placental surface and is bathed in maternal blood, was highly resistant to L. monocytogenes infection by either internalin-mediated invasion or cell-to-cell spread. Instead, extravillous cytotrophoblasts—which anchor the placenta in the decidua (uterine lining) and abundantly express E-cadherin—served as the primary portal of entry for L. monocytogenes from both extracellular and intracellular compartments. Subsequent bacterial dissemination to the villous stroma, where fetal capillaries are found, was hampered by further cellular and histological barriers. Our study suggests the placenta has evolved multiple mechanisms to resist pathogen infection, especially from maternal blood. These findings provide a novel explanation why almost all placental pathogens have intracellular life cycles: they may need maternal cells to reach the decidua and infect the placenta.

Listeriolysin O is necessary and sufficient to induce autophagy during Listeria monocytogenes infection.

Background Recent studies have suggested that autophagy is utilized by cells as a protective mechanism against Listeria monocytogenes infection. Methodology/Principal Findings However we find autophagy has no measurable role in vacuolar escape and intracellular growth in primary cultured bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDMs) deficient for autophagy (atg5−/−). Nevertheless, we provide evidence that the pore forming activity of the cholesterol-dependent cytolysin listeriolysin O (LLO) can induce autophagy subsequent to infection by L. monocytogenes. Infection of BMDMs with L. monocytogenes induced microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3) lipidation, consistent with autophagy activation, whereas a mutant lacking LLO did not. Infection of BMDMs that express LC3-GFP demonstrated that wild-type L. monocytogenes was encapsulated by LC3-GFP, consistent with autophagy activation, whereas a mutant lacking LLO was not. Bacillus subtilis expressing either LLO or a related cytolysin, perfringolysin O (PFO), induced LC3 colocalization and LC3 lipidation. Further, LLO-containing liposomes also recruited LC3-GFP, indicating that LLO was sufficient to induce targeted autophagy in the absence of infection. The role of autophagy had variable effects depending on the cell type assayed. In atg5−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts, L. monocytogenes had a primary vacuole escape defect. However, the bacteria escaped and grew normally in atg5−/− BMDMs. Conclusions/Significance We propose that membrane damage, such as that caused by LLO, triggers bacterial-targeted autophagy, although autophagy does not affect the fate of wild-type intracellular L. monocytogenes in primary BMDMs.

The making of a gradient: IcsA (VirG) polarity in Shigella flexneri

The generation and maintenance of subcellular organization in bacteria is critical for many cell processes and properties, including growth, structural integrity and, in pathogens, virulence. Here, we investigate the mechanisms by which the virulence protein IcsA (VirG) is distributed on the bacterial surface to promote efficient transmission of the bacterium Shigella flexneri from one host cell to another. The outer membrane protein IcsA recruits host factors that result in actin filament nucleation and, when concentrated at one bacterial pole, promote unidirectional actin‐based motility of the pathogen. We show here that the focused polar gradient of IcsA is generated by its delivery exclusively to one pole followed by lateral diffusion through the outer membrane. The resulting gradient can be modified by altering the composition of the outer membrane either genetically or pharmacologically. The gradient can be reshaped further by the action of the protease IcsP (SopA), whose activity we show to be near uniform on the bacterial surface. Further, we report polar delivery of IcsA in Escherichia coli and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, suggesting that the mechanism for polar delivery of some outer membrane proteins is conserved across species and that the virulence function of IcsA capitalizes on a more global mechanism for subcellular organization.

Invasive Extravillous Trophoblasts Restrict Intracellular Growth and Spread of Listeria monocytogenes

Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative intracellular bacterial pathogen that can infect the placenta, a chimeric organ made of maternal and fetal cells. Extravillous trophoblasts (EVT) are specialized fetal cells that invade the uterine implantation site, where they come into direct contact with maternal cells. We have shown previously that EVT are the preferred site of initial placental infection. In this report, we infected primary human EVT with L. monocytogenes. EVT eliminated ∼80% of intracellular bacteria over 24-hours. Bacteria were unable to escape into the cytoplasm and remained confined to vacuolar compartments that became acidified and co-localized with LAMP1, consistent with bacterial degradation in lysosomes. In human placental organ cultures bacterial vacuolar escape rates differed between specific trophoblast subpopulations. The most invasive EVT—those that would be in direct contact with maternal cells in vivo—had lower escape rates than trophoblasts that were surrounded by fetal cells and tissues. Our results suggest that EVT present a bottleneck in the spread of L. monocytogenes from mother to fetus by inhibiting vacuolar escape, and thus intracellular bacterial growth. However, if L. monocytogenes is able to spread beyond EVT it can find a more hospitable environment. Our results elucidate a novel aspect of the maternal-fetal barrier.

Optic Atrophy 1-Dependent Mitochondrial Remodeling Controls Steroidogenesis in Trophoblasts

Summary During human pregnancy, placental trophoblasts differentiate and syncytialize into syncytiotrophoblasts that sustain progesterone production [1]. This process is accompanied by mitochondrial fragmentation and cristae remodeling [2], two facets of mitochondrial apoptosis, whose molecular mechanisms and functional consequences on steroidogenesis are unclear. Here we show that the mitochondria-shaping protein Optic atrophy 1 (Opa1) controls efficiency of steroidogenesis. During syncytialization of trophoblast BeWo cells, levels of the profission mitochondria-shaping protein Drp1 increase, and those of Opa1 and mitofusin (Mfn) decrease, leading to mitochondrial fragmentation and cristae remodeling. Manipulation of the levels of Opa1 reveal an inverse relationship with the efficiency of steroidogenesis in trophoblasts and in mouse embryonic fibroblasts where the mitochondrial steroidogenetic pathway has been engineered. In an in vitro assay, accumulation of cholesterol is facilitated in the inner membrane of isolated mitochondria lacking Opa1. Thus, Opa1-dependent inner membrane remodeling controls efficiency of steroidogenesis.

Hypoxia modulates early events in T cell receptor-mediated activation in human T lymphocytes via Kv1.3 channels.

T lymphocytes are exposed to hypoxia during their development and when they migrate to hypoxic pathological sites. Although it has been shown that hypoxia inhibits Kv1.3 channels and proliferation in human T cells, the mechanisms by which hypoxia regulates T cell activation are not fully understood. Herein we test the hypothesis that hypoxic inhibition of Kv1.3 channels induces membrane depolarization, thus modulating the increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ that occurs during activation. Hypoxia causes membrane depolarization in human CD3+ T cells, as measured by fluorescence‐activated cell sorting (FACS) with the voltage‐sensitive dye DiBAC4(3). Similar depolarization is produced by the selective Kv1.3 channel blockers ShK‐Dap22 and margatoxin. Furthermore, pre‐exposure to such blockers prevents any further depolarization by hypoxia. Since membrane depolarization is unfavourable to the influx of Ca2+ through the CRAC channels (necessary to drive many events in T cell activation such as cytokine production and proliferation), the effect of hypoxia on T cell receptor‐mediated increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ was determined using fura‐2. Hypoxia depresses the increase in Ca2+ induced by anti‐CD3/CD28 antibodies in ∼50% of lymphocytes. In the remaining cells, hypoxia either did not elicit any change or produced a small increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+. Similar effects were observed in resting and pre‐activated CD3+ cells and were mimicked by ShK‐Dap22. These effects appear to be mediated solely by Kv1.3 channels, as we find no influence of hypoxia on IKCa1 and CRAC channels. Our findings indicate that hypoxia modulates Ca2+ homeostasis in T cells via Kv1.3 channel inhibition and membrane depolarization.

Beyond Race and Place: Distal Sociological Determinants of HIV Disparities

Informed behavior change as an HIV prevention tool has yielded unequal successes across populations. Despite decades of HIV education, some individuals remain at high risk. The mainstream media often portrays these risk factors as products of race and national borders; however, a rich body of recent literature proposes a host of complex social factors that influence behavior, including, but not limited to: poverty, income inequality, stigmatizing social institutions and health care access. We examined the relationship between numerous social indicators and HIV incidence across eighty large U.S. cities in 1990 and 2000. During this time, major correlating factors included income inequality, poverty, educational attainment, residential segregation and marriage rates. However, these ecological factors were weighted differentially across risk groups (e.g. heterosexual, intravenous drug use, men who have sex with men (MSM)). Heterosexual risk rose significantly with poor economic indicators, while MSM risk depended more heavily on anti-homosexual stigma (as measured by same-sex marriage laws). HIV incidence among black individuals correlated significantly with numerous economic factors but also with segregation and imbalances in the male:female ratio (often an effect of mass incarceration). Our results support an overall model of HIV ecology where poverty, income inequality and social inequality (in the form of institutionalized racism and anti-homosexual stigma) have over time developed into synergistic drivers of disease transmission in the U.S., inhibiting information-based prevention efforts. The relative weights of these distal factors vary over time and by HIV risk group. Our testable model may be more generally applicable within the U.S. and beyond.

Placental syncytium forms a biophysical barrier against pathogen invasion.

Fetal syncytiotrophoblasts form a unique fused multinuclear surface that is bathed in maternal blood, and constitutes the main interface between fetus and mother. Syncytiotrophoblasts are exposed to pathogens circulating in maternal blood, and appear to have unique resistance mechanisms against microbial invasion. These are due in part to the lack of intercellular junctions and their receptors, the Achilles heel of polarized mononuclear epithelia. However, the syncytium is immune to receptor-independent invasion as well, suggesting additional general defense mechanisms against infection. The difficulty of maintaining and manipulating primary human syncytiotrophoblasts in culture makes it challenging to investigate the cellular and molecular basis of host defenses in this unique tissue. Here we present a novel system to study placental pathogenesis using murine trophoblast stem cells (mTSC) that can be differentiated into syncytiotrophoblasts and recapitulate human placental syncytium. Consistent with previous results in primary human organ cultures, murine syncytiotrophoblasts were found to be resistant to infection with Listeria monocytogenes via direct invasion and cell-to-cell spread. Atomic force microscopy of murine syncytiotrophoblasts demonstrated that these cells have a greater elastic modulus than mononuclear trophoblasts. Disruption of the unusually dense actin structure – a diffuse meshwork of microfilaments - with Cytochalasin D led to a decrease in its elastic modulus by 25%. This correlated with a small but significant increase in invasion of L. monocytogenes into murine and human syncytium. These results suggest that the syncytial actin cytoskeleton may form a general barrier against pathogen entry in humans and mice. Moreover, murine TSCs are a genetically tractable model system for the investigation of specific pathways in syncytial host defenses.

Listeria monocytogenes rotates around its long axis during actin-based motility

Actin-based motility of the Grampositive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is an analog of eukaryotic cell motility and has long been the subject of biochemical and biophysical investigations (reviewed in [1]). Only one bacterial factor—ActA—is required for the movement of L. monocytogenes [2–4]. Biophysical mechanisms have been proposed to explain the conversion of actin polymerization into propulsive force [5–11], but none predicts a torsional force. Surprisingly, we find that L. monocytogenes rotates around its long axis as it is propelled by actin polymerization. In contrast, Gramnegative bacteria do not rotate if actin-based motility is directed by IcsA (VirG), a Shigella flexneri protein unrelated to ActA [3,12,13]. Through the non-specific coupling of fluorescent microspheres to the bacterial surface we observed the longitudinal rotation of L. monocytogenes moving in extract (Figure 1A; supplementary data ). While beads remained at a fixed distance from the bacterial poles, indicating that they are not mobile on the cell surface, they changed their position with respect to the bacterial long axis. Bacterial speed averaged 0.09 μm/s (S.D. = 0.03 μm/s), and neither speed nor path curvature was affected by bead attachment (by Student’s Ttest, p > 0.05, n > 15). After plotting the length of the bead’s orthogonal projection onto the longitudinal axis (Figure 1B,C), we found that all traces indicated unidirectional rotation. The length of the orthogonal projection reached a maximum, crossed the bacterial longitudinal axis, reached a minimum and returned to a maximum as the bead crossed to the opposite side (n = 40, Figure 1C). Immotile bacteria symmetrically surrounded by actin jittered randomly. The periodicity of rotation was calculated by computing the autocorrelation functions of the orthogonal projections (Figure 1D). Two such calculations were performed on every trajectory for which at least 500 s of data were available (n = 27), one with respect to time and the other with respect to forward distance traveled by the bacterium (translational distance). A Fourier transformation of the autocorrelation (Figure 1E) showed a single peak in distance and time for all but one bacterium, indicating that each bacterium had a nearly constant rotation speed. Rotation was slow compared to forward motion. The average distance a bacterium travelled per rotation was 29.4 ± 11.8 μm (n = 20) and the average time per rotation was 507 ± 160 s (n = 19). Neither the temporal nor the spatial period for rotation was well-correlated with bacterial speed or bacterial length, and the temporal and spatial periods did not correlate with each other (supplemental data). Electron microscopy has shown that the filaments in actin tails are strikingly twisted [14], and several experiments indicate that at least a subset of these filaments is attached to the bacterium [8,15].

Hypoxia-activated metabolic pathway stimulates phosphorylation of p300 and CBP in oxygen-sensitive cells

Transcription co‐activators and histone acetyltransferases, p300 and cyclic AMP responsive element‐binding protein‐binding protein (CBP), participate in hypoxic activation of hypoxia‐inducible genes. Here, we show that exposure of PC12 and cells to 1–10% oxygen results in hyperphosphorylation of p300/CBP. This response is fast, long lasting and specific for hypoxia, but not for hypoxia‐mimicking agents such as desferioxamine or Co2+ ions. It is also cell‐type specific and occurs in pheochromocytoma PC12 cells and the carotid body of rats but not in hepatoblastoma cells. The p300 hyperphosphorylation specifically depends on the release of intracellular calcium from inositol 1,4,5‐triphosphate (IP3)‐sensitive stores. However, it is not inhibited by pharmacological inhibitors of any of the kinases traditionally known to be directly or indirectly calcium regulated. On the other hand, p300 hyperphosphorylation is inhibited by several different inhibitors of the glucose metabolic pathway from generation of NADH by glyceraldehyde 3‐phosphate dehydrogenase, through the transfer of NADH through the glycerol phosphate shuttle to ubiquinone and complex III of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Inhibition of IP3‐sensitive calcium stores decreases generation of ATP, and this inhibition is significantly stronger in hypoxia than in normoxia. We propose that the NADH glycerol phosphate shuttle participates in generating a pool of ATP that serves either as a co‐factor or a modulator of the kinases involved in the phosphorylation of p300/CBP during hypoxia.