Influence of Flagellin Polymorphisms, Gene Regulation, and Responsive Memory on the Motility of Xanthomonas Species That Cause Bacterial Spot Disease of Solanaceous Plants

Increasingly, new evidence has demonstrated variability in the epitope regions of bacterial flagellin, including in regions harboring the microbe-associated molecular patterns flg22 and flgII-28 that are recognized by the pattern recognition receptors FLS2 and FLS3, respectively. Additionally, because bacterial motility is known to contribute to pathogen virulence and chemotaxis, reductions in or loss of motility can significantly reduce bacterial fitness. In this study, we determined that variations in flg22 and flgII-28 epitopes allow some but not all Xanthomonas spp. to evade both FLS2- and FLS3-mediated oxidative burst responses. We observed variation in the motility for many isolates, regardless of their flagellin sequence. Instead, we determined that past growth conditions may have a significant impact on the motility status of isolates, because we could minimize this variability by inducing motility using chemoattractant assays. Additionally, motility could be significantly suppressed under nutrient-limited conditions, and bacteria could "remember" its prior motility status after storage at ultracold temperatures. Finally, we observed larger bacterial populations of strains with flagellin variants predicted not to be recognized by either FLS2 or FLS3, suggesting that these bacteria can evade flagellin recognition in tomato plants. Although some flagellin variants may impart altered motility and differential recognition by the host immune system, external growth parameters and gene expression regulation appear to have more significant impacts on the motility phenotypes for these Xanthomonas spp.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license.

Preparation and biodistribution of copper-67 complexes with tetradentate Schiff-base ligands

Uncharged, lipophilic, low molecular weight copper complexes labeled with generator-produced copper-62 are of interest as potential radiopharmaceutials for imaging the brain with positron emission tomography (PET). We report here the synthesis and biodistribution of a series of [67Cu]copper(II) complexes with tetradentate N2O2(2-)Schiff-base ligands. The compounds studied varied in lipophilicity from log P = 1.7 to log P = 3.6, where P is the octanol/water partition coefficient. In rat biodistribution studies the tracers were generally found to penetrate the blood-brain barrier following intravenous injection, but some far better than others. For closely related compounds brain uptake at 1 min postinjection increased with increasing lipophilicity, although log P was clearly not the sole determinant of high brain uptake. Substantial variations were also observed in the rate at which these various compounds are cleared from brain, with a few exhibiting the prolonged cerebral retention of tracer that would be desired for imaging with 62Cu and PET.