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Infection and Immunity, October 2004, p. 6151-6156, Vol. 72, No. 10
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.10.6151-6156.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Use of Deoxyribose by Intestinal and Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strains: a Metabolic Adaptation Involved in Competitiveness
Christine Bernier-Fébreau,1 Laurence du Merle,1 Evelyne Turlin,2 Valérie Labas,3 Juana Ordonez,1,
Anne-Marie Gilles,2,4,
and Chantal Le Bouguénec1*
Unité de Pathogénie Bactérienne des Muqueuses,1
Unité de Génétique des Génomes Bactériens,2
Laboratoire de Chimie Structurale des Macromolécules, Institut Pasteur,4
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie et Diversité Cellulaire, ESPCI, Paris, France3
Received 20 April 2004/
Returned for modification 24 May 2004/
Accepted 3 July 2004

ABSTRACT
We showed that the
deoK operon, which confers the ability to
use deoxyribose as a carbon source, is more common among pathogenic
than commensal
Escherichia coli strains. The expression of the
deoK operon increases the competitiveness of clinical isolates,
suggesting that this biochemical characteristic plays a role
in host infectivity.

TEXT
Both pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains of
Escherichia coli exist. The nonpathogenic strains are found in the normal intestinal
flora of humans and animals, and the pathogenic strains are
a leading cause of death and morbidity worldwide, particularly
in developing countries. Pathogenicity islands (PAIs) carrying
virulence genes have been characterized. However, most sequences
within PAIs are still of unknown function. PAI I
AL862 from the
human blood
E. coli isolate AL862 was previously described (
18).
The
afa-8 operon is the only region encoding a virulence factor
that has been identified in this new PAI (
18). Here, we demonstrate
the presence of the
deoK operon in this PAI. This operon codes
for the use of deoxyribose, a sugar that is not fermented by
E. coli K-12.
We observed that partially sequenced regions of PAI IAL862 (18) showed similarities with the deoK operon from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (2, 30). Using primers deduced from these sequences, we amplified and sequenced a 5,840-bp segment from pILL1272, a cosmid from the AL862 library (Table 1). A 4,375-bp region was 78% identical to the deoK operon from S. enterica, which is composed of four genes (deoQ, deoK, deoP, and deoM) (Fig. 1). Few bacteria are able to catabolize deoxyribose. Deoxyribokinase (product of the deoK gene), which catalyzes the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of 2-D-deoxyribose, has only been identified in Lactobacillus plantarum, Selenomonas ruminantium, and S. enterica (12, 16, 26). We showed that E. coli strains AL862 and MG1655(pILL1272) were able to grow on K5 minimal medium (11) containing 0.1% 2-D-deoxyribose ribose (vol/vol) as the sole carbon source for 24 to 48 h at 37°C, meaning that they express the deoK operon.
Database searches showed that the
deoK operon from AL862 is
highly conserved in the uropathogenic
E. coli isolate CFT073
(99% identity over 4,378 bp) (
31). However, the genomes of the
commensal strain MG1655 of
E. coli K-12 (
5) and the enterohemorrhagic
E. coli O157:H7 strains EDL933 and Sakai do not contain this
operon (
14,
25). We investigated 354 pathogenic and commensal
isolates from various collections (Table
2). Colony hybridization
assays (performed as described in reference
13) and growth assays
on deoxyribose minimal medium with 130 clinical isolates showed
that the presence of the
deoK operon was always correlated with
the use of this sugar. Probes A and B (Fig.
1) were amplified
from AL862 DNA with previously described primers (
18). Although
we found that both pathogenic and commensal strains harbored
the
deoK operon, our results strongly suggested that this operon
is associated with the pathogenicity of the strain (45.4% of
pathogenic strains versus 22.9% of commensal strains harbored
deoK;
P < 0.01). Approximately half of the
deoK-positive
commensal isolates studied carried sequences encoding at least
one virulence factor produced by extraintestinal pathogenic
E. coli (ExPEC) (data not shown) and, consequently, could be
considered potential ExPEC strains resident in the bowel.
We created nonpolar mutations by replacing the
deoK gene with
a PCR product containing a kanamycin resistance cassette as
described previously (
9). PCR analysis was performed to confirm
the replacement of the gene. The deletion of the
deoK gene did
not result in any apparent growth defects. A study of parental
strains, mutants, and transcomplemented mutants showed that
the
deoK gene is involved in use of the sugar (Table
1). These
data were confirmed by determination of the deoxyribokinase
specific activity and by comparison of the proteomes of
deoK-positive
[AL862, 55989, CFT073, and MG1655(pILL1287)] and
deoK-negative
(55989
deoK and MG1655) strains, as previously described (
10,
30). Deoxyribokinase activity (0.005 to 0.014 U/mg) and deoxyribokinase
(identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time
of flight mass spectrometry [data not shown]) could only be
detected in soluble extracts from
deoK-positive isolates that
had been grown in minimal medium in the presence of deoxyribose.
Sequencing and comparison of the deoK operons from three pathogenic (AL862, 55989, and CFT073) and one commensal (EC185) E. coli strain showed that this operon is conserved (98% identity), as is an
1-kb DNA region surrounding it (750 bp on the left side and 280 bp on the right side) in all the strains tested (Fig. 1). A few base pairs (242 bp upstream and 115 bp downstream) directly flanking the operon corresponded to partial sequences of the ilvN and uhpA genes, between which the deoK operon is inserted in S. enterica (30). The sequences following these two truncated genes did not share similarity with sequences in the databases. These data suggested that E. coli acquired the deoK operon by horizontal transfer, possibly from S. enterica.
Deoxyribose is a sugar that is exclusively derived from DNA degradation, and the human diet leads to a high concentration of DNA in the intestine. We therefore hypothesized that deoxyribose catabolism plays a role in the colonization of the intestine by both ExPEC (where they are resident) and intestinal pathogenic E. coli (InPEC) strains, by conferring the ability to use a limiting nutrient. In agreement with this hypothesis, we demonstrated that deoK-positive strains were able to ferment deoxyribose. As the intestine is a complex organ that contains various and variable limiting nutrients, we carried out coculture experiments (with equal numbers of wild-type and deoK mutant colonies) in rich and minimal medium (K5 broth containing pyruvate as a constant carbon source) supplemented with or without deoxyribose. Although the growth rates were similar in independent cultures, the deoK mutants were less competitive than the corresponding wild-type strains in the coculture experiments. This effect clearly depends on the presence of both an active deoK gene and deoxyribose in the medium (Fig. 2 and 3). The 55989deoK mutant was totally eliminated after several days in rich medium but only suffered from a loss of fitness in minimal medium. Levels of enzyme activity after the growth of strain 55989 in the different media (data not shown) suggested that competitive differences are probably related to differences in deoxyribokinase activities. Although the MG1655 strain and the 55989deoK mutant showed similar fitness patterns in our coculture experiments, the parental 55989 isolate totally outcompeted the commensal strain after 6 days. Thus, the acquisition of the deoK operon by E. coli strains might confer an evolutionary fitness advantage, especially for pathogenic strains. In conclusion, our results agree with other reports, suggesting that metabolic functions specific for pathogenic strains play a role in host infectivity.
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers. The GenBank accession
numbers for the 5,840-bp region of pILL1272, the 6,105-bp region
of pILL1287, and the 6,921-bp region of strain EC185 reported
in this paper are
AY299335,
AY298765, and
AY299336, respectively.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Agnès Labigne, Antoine Danchin, and Octavian
B

rzu, in whose units this work was carried out, for their continuing interest and helpful discussions.
We thank J. Hacker for the gift of strains CFT073 and 536, E.
Bingen for the gift of RS218, J. Nataro for the gift of JM221
and 042, S. Moseley for the gift of C1845, T. Baldwin for the
gift of 2348-69, L. Riley for the gift of EDL1493, and A. O'Brien
for the gift of EDL933. We thank A. Darfeuille-Michaud, C. Martin,
E. Oswald, and A. Aidara-Kane for the gift of adherent invasive,
enterohemorrhagic, and enteropathogenic
E. coli isolates. We
thank J. M. Ghigo and S. Da Re for their help with allelic exchange
experiments. We also thank Joëlle Ferdinand for excellent
technical assistance.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Pathogénie Bactérienne des Muqueuses, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr. Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. Phone: 33 1 40 61 32 80. Fax: 33 1 40 61 36 40. E-mail:
clb{at}pasteur.fr.

Editor: J. T. Barbieri
Present address: Laboratorio Especial de Microbiologia, Instituto Butatan, 05503-900 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil. 
Present address: Unité de Génétique des Génomes Bactériens, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. 

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Infection and Immunity, October 2004, p. 6151-6156, Vol. 72, No. 10
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.10.6151-6156.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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