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. 2020 Dec 15:11:598797.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.598797. eCollection 2020.

Proteomic Analysis of Stationary Growth Stage Adaptation and Nutritional Deficiency Response of Brucella abortus

Jianghua Yang  1 , Mengzhi Liu  2 , Jinling Liu  1 , Baoshan Liu  1 , Chuanyu He  1 , Zeliang Chen  1   3   4   5
Affiliations

Proteomic Analysis of Stationary Growth Stage Adaptation and Nutritional Deficiency Response of Brucella abortus

Jianghua Yang et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Brucellosis, an important bacterial zoonosis caused by Brucella species, has drawn increasing attention worldwide. As an intracellular pathogen, the ability of Brucella to deal with stress within the host cell is closely related to its virulence. Due to the similarity between the survival pressure on Brucella within host cells and that during the stationary phase, a label-free proteomics approach was used to study the adaptive response of Brucella abortus in the stationary stage to reveal the possible intracellular adaptation mechanism in this study. A total of 182 downregulated and 140 upregulated proteins were found in the stationary-phase B. abortus. B. abortus adapted to adverse environmental changes by regulating virulence, reproduction, transcription, translation, stress response, and energy production. In addition, both exponential- and stationary-phase B. abortus were treated with short-term starvation. The exponential B. abortus restricted cell reproduction and energy utilization and enhanced material transport in response to nutritional stress. Compared with the exponential phase, stationary Brucella adjusted their protein expression to a lesser extent under starvation. Therefore, B. abortus in the two growth stages significantly differed in the regulation of protein expression in response to the same stress. Overall, we outlined the adaptive mechanisms that B. abortus may employ during growth and compared the differences between exponential- and stationary-phase B. abortus in response to starvation.

Keywords: Brucella abortus; exponential phase; nutritional stress; proteomics; stationary phase.

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Conflict of interest statement

ML was employed by the company of Tecon Biological Co., Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Statistical analysis of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). (A) Number of up- or downregulated proteins in the groups of TSBSL, GEMSL, GTLL, and GTSS; (B) a Venn diagram of upregulated proteins in the groups of TSBSL, GEMSL, GTLL, and GTSS; and (C) a Venn diagram of downregulated proteins in the groups of TSBSL, GEMSL, GTLL, and GTSS. TSBSL group: stationary-phase Brucella abortus versus exponential-phase B. abortus cultured in the tryptone soya broth (TSB) medium; GEMSL group: stationary-phase B. abortus treated with starvation versus exponential-phase B. abortus treated with starvation; GTLL group: exponential-phase B. abortus treated with starvation versus untreated exponential-phase B. abortus; and GTSS group: stationary-phase B. abortus treated with starvation versus untreated stationary-phase B. abortus.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The clusters of orthologous groups (COG) analysis of the differentially expressed proteins for the groups of TSBSL, GEMSL, GTLL, and GTSS. (A) COG analysis of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) for the group of TSBSL; (B) COG analysis of DEPs for the group of GEMSL; (C) COG analysis of DEPs for the group of GTLL group; and (D) COG analysis of DEPs for the group of GTSS group.
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