title: Characterization of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis ESX-3 conditional mutant: essentiality and rescue by iron and zinc.
abstract: Recently, a novel type of secretory pathway, type VII secretion systems (T7SSs), has been characterized in mycobacteria. The chromosomes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis encode five T7SSs (ESX-1 to ESX-5). The best characterized of them, ESX-1, is involved in host-pathogen interactions, and its deletion is one of the main causes of M. bovis BCG attenuation. Another T7SS, ESX-3, has been previously shown to be transcriptionally controlled by the zinc uptake repressor (Zur) and by the iron-dependent transcriptional repressor (IdeR), suggesting that it might be involved in zinc and iron homeostasis. In this study, we characterized an M. tuberculosis conditional mutant in which transcription of the ESX-3 gene cluster can be downregulated by anhydrotetracycline. We showed that this T7SS is essential for growth and that this phenotype can be complemented by zinc, iron, or supernatant from a wild-type parental strain culture, demonstrating that the ESX-3 secretion system is responsible for the secretion of some soluble factor(s) required for growth that is probably involved in optimal iron and zinc uptake.
authors.affiliation: Department of Histology, Microbiology, and Medical Biotechnologies, University of Padua, Via Gabelli 63, 35121 Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Agnese
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Serafini
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boldrin
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Palù
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Manganelli
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology; D009154:Mutation; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000235:genetics*; D013997:Time Factors; D015032:Zinc / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D007501:Iron; D015032:Zinc
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