Capsular Arabinomannans from Mycobacterium avium with Morphotype-specific Structural Differences but Identical Biological Activity

Sensitive, precise fingerprint profiling for monosaccharide analysis of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin polysaccharide and nucleic acid isolates

A sensitive and precise HPLC-DAD method with pre-column PMP derivatization was established and validated, for analyzing the polysaccharides in Bacillus Calmette-Guérin polysaccharide and nucleic acid (BCG-PSN) isolates, after acid hydrolysis. And the HPLC fingerprint profiling was used to analyze its monosaccharide composition. The monosaccharide concentration-peak area calibration curve was of good linearity (R2 > 0.99), over the range of 0.016-0.08 mg/mL for mannose or 0.24-1.20 mg/mL for glucose, with high recovery of 93-105 % for quality control samples. The intra-day RSD values of mannose and glucose concentration were less than 2.5 % and 2.1 %, respectively, and their inter-day RSD values were less than 4.3 % and 2.2 %, respectively, and remained stable for up to 14 days. This method also remained durable against changes in chromatographic parameters, but it's susceptible to the flow rate of mobile phase. Additionally, the method was applied to analyze the content of mannose and glucose in 22 batches BCG-PSN powder and 17 batches BCG-PSN injection. The results showed that the HPLC-DAD fingerprint spectra of all the BCG-PSN powder and BCG-PSN injection samples had a high degree of similarity, with the similar indexes up to 0.999 and 0.998, respectively. The HPLC-DAD method with pre-column PMP derivatization is highly rapid, effective, visual, and accurate for determination of monosaccharide contents. The validated method was successfully applied to the analysis of polysaccharide in both BCG-PSN powder and injection.

Frequency of Th17 cells correlates with the presence of lung lesions in pigs chronically infected with Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae

Porcine contagious pleuropneumonia caused by Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (APP) remains one of the major causes of poor growth performance and respiratory disease in pig herds. While the role of antibodies against APP has been intensely studied, the porcine T cell response remains poorly characterized. To address this, pigs were intranasally infected with APP serotype 2 and euthanized during the acute phase [6-10 days post-infection (dpi)] or the chronic phase of APP infection (27-31 dpi). Lymphocytes isolated from blood, tonsils, lung tissue and tracheobronchial lymph nodes were analyzed by intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) for IL-17A, IL-10 and TNF-α production after in vitro stimulation with crude capsular extract (CCE) of the APP inoculation strain. This was combined with cell surface staining for the expression of CD4, CD8α and TCR-γδ. Clinical records, microbiological investigations and pathological findings confirmed the induction of a subclinical APP infection. ICS-assays revealed the presence of APP-CCE specific CD4⁺CD8α^dim IL-17A-producing T cells in blood and lung tissue in most infected animals during the acute and chronic phase of infection and a minor fraction of these cells co-produced TNF-α. APP-CCE specific IL-17A-producing γδ T cells could not be found and APP-CCE specific IL-10-producing CD4⁺ T cells were present in various organs but only in a few infected animals. The frequency of identified putative Th17 cells (CD4⁺CD8α^dimIL-17A⁺) in lung and blood correlated positively with lung lesion scores and APP-specific antibody titers during the chronic phase. These results suggest a potential role of Th17 cells in the immune pathogenesis of APP infection.

Association of Human Antibodies to Arabinomannan With Enhanced Mycobacterial Opsonophagocytosis and Intracellular Growth Reduction

Background. The relevance of antibodies (Abs) in the defense against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection remains uncertain. We investigated the role of Abs to the mycobacterial capsular polysaccharide arabinomannan (AM) and its oligosaccharide (OS) fragments in humans.

Methods. Sera obtained from 29 healthy adults before and after primary or secondary bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination were assessed for Ab responses to AM via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and to AM OS epitopes via novel glycan microarrays. Effects of prevaccination and postvaccination sera on BCG phagocytosis and intracellular survival were assessed in human macrophages.

Results. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) responses to AM increased significantly 4–8 weeks after vaccination (P < .01), and sera were able to opsonize BCG and M. tuberculosis grown in both the absence and the presence of detergent. Phagocytosis and intracellular growth inhibition were significantly enhanced when BCG was opsonized with postvaccination sera (P < .01), and these enhancements correlated significantly with IgG titers to AM (P < .05), particularly with reactivity to 3 AM OS epitopes (P < .05). Furthermore, increased phagolysosomal fusion was observed with postvaccination sera.

Conclusions. Our results provide further evidence for a role of Ab-mediated immunity to tuberculosis and suggest that IgG to AM, especially to some of its OS epitopes, could contribute to the defense against mycobacterial infection in humans.

Diversity in Mycobacterium tuberculosis mannosylated cell wall determinants impacts adaptation to the host

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causal agent of TB) has co-evolved with humans for centuries. It infects via the airborne route and is a prototypic highly adapted intracellular pathogen of macrophages. Extensive sequencing of the M. tuberculosis genome along with recent molecular phylogenetic studies is enabling us to gain insight into the biologic diversity that exists among bacterial strains that impact the pathogenesis of latent infection and disease. The majority of the M. tuberculosis cell envelope is comprised of carbohydrates and lipids, and there is increasing evidence that these microbial determinants that are readily exposed to the host immune system play critical roles in disease pathogenesis. Studies from our laboratory and others have raised the possibility that M. tuberculosis is adapting to the human host by cloaking its cell envelope molecules with terminal mannosylated (i.e. Man-alpha-(1-->2)-Man) oligosaccharides that resemble the glycoforms of mammalian mannoproteins. These mannosylated biomolecules engage the mannose receptor (MR) on macrophages during phagocytosis and dictate the intracellular fate of M. tuberculosis by regulating formation of the unique vesicular compartment in which the bacterium survives. The MR is highly expressed on alveolar macrophages (predominant C-type lectin on human cells) and functions as a scavenger receptor to maintain the healthiness of the lung by clearing foreign particles and at the same time regulating dangerous inflammatory responses. Thus M. tuberculosis exploits MR functions to gain entry into the macrophage and survive. Key biochemical pathways and mycobacterial determinants involved in the development and maintenance of the M. tuberculosis phagosome are being identified. The phylogenetic diversity observed in M. tuberculosis strains that impact its cell wall structure together with the genetic diversity observed in human populations, including those elements that affect macrophage function, may help to explain the extraordinary evolutionary adaptation of this pathogen to the human host. Major developments in these areas are the focus of this review.

Animal shed Bacillus licheniformis spores possess allergy-protective as well as inflammatory properties

BACKGROUND

Numerous epidemiologic studies have demonstrated an allergy-protective effect of farm life early in childhood. It has been hypothesized that environmental exposure to microbes may contribute to this effect. Because of their small size and thereby their potential for deposition in lower airways of small children, bacterial spores may be candidates for such allergy-protective effects.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate immune responses elicited by exposure to Bacillus spores in experimental settings.

METHODS

Animal shed and mattress dusts were analyzed for bacteria and fungi by aerobic and anaerobic growth. Bacillus licheniformis, the most prominent microorganism found in these samples, was investigated with respect to spore specific stimulation of pattern recognition receptors, monocyte-derived dendritic cells and T(H)-cell polarization in vitro as well as to the prevention of asthma development in a mouse model of allergic asthma.

RESULTS

In vitro, B. licheniformis spores activated a T(H)1 cytokine expression profile. In vivo application of these spores resulted in less spore-specific but long-lasting immune activation preventing eosinophilia and goblet cell hyperplasia; however, they provoked an influx of neutrophils in lung tissue of asthmatic mice.

CONCLUSION

Bacterial spores may contribute to the allergy-protective properties of farming environments, but their persistence in the lung causes ongoing immune activation in mouse experiments.

Teichoic acids and related cell-wall glycopolymers in Gram-positive physiology and host interactions

Most Gram-positive bacteria incorporate membrane- or peptidoglycan-attached carbohydrate-based polymers into their cell envelopes. Such cell-wall glycopolymers (CWGs) often have highly variable structures and have crucial roles in protecting, connecting and controlling the major envelope constituents. Further important roles of CWGs in host-cell adhesion, inflammation and immune activation have also been described in recent years. Identifying and harnessing highly conserved or species-specific structural features of CWGs offers excellent opportunities for developing new antibiotics, vaccines and diagnostics for use in the fight against severe infectious diseases, such as sepsis, pneumonia, anthrax and tuberculosis.