Browsing by Author "Zwickl, Beth"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A Class I Haemophilus ducreyi Strain Containing a Class II hgbA Allele Is Partially Attenuated in Humans: Implications for HgbA Vaccine Efficacy Trials
    (American Society for Microbiology, 2019-07) Leduc, Isabelle; Fortney, Kate R.; Janowicz, Diane M.; Zwickl, Beth; Ellinger, Sheila; Katz, Barry P.; Lin, Huaiying; Dong, Qunfeng; Spinola, Stanley M.; Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
    Haemophilus ducreyi causes chancroid and is a major cause of cutaneous ulcers in children. Due to environmental reservoirs, both class I and class II H. ducreyi strains persist in cutaneous ulcer regions of endemicity following mass drug administration of azithromycin, suggesting the need for a vaccine. The hemoglobin receptor (HgbA) is a leading vaccine candidate, but its efficacy in animal models is class specific. Controlled human infection models can be used to evaluate vaccines, but only a class I strain (35000HP) has been characterized in this model. As a prelude to evaluating HgbA vaccines in the human model, we tested here whether a derivative of 35000HP containing a class II hgbA allele (FX548) is as virulent as 35000HP in humans. In eight volunteers infected at three sites with each strain, the papule formation rate was 95.8% for 35000HP versus 62.5% for FX548 (P = 0.021). Excluding doses of FX548 that were ≥2-fold higher than those of 35000HP, the pustule formation rate was 25% for 35000HP versus 11.7% for FX548 (P = 0.0053). By Western blot analysis, FX548 and 35000HP expressed equivalent amounts of HgbA in whole-cell lysates and outer membranes. The growth of FX548 and 35000HP was similar in media containing hemoglobin or hemin. By whole-genome sequencing and single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis, FX548 contained no mutations in open reading frames other than hgbA. We conclude that by an unknown mechanism, FX548 is partially attenuated in humans and is not a suitable strain for HgbA vaccine efficacy trials in the model.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Human Skin Microbiome Associates with the Outcome of and Is Influenced by Bacterial Infection
    (American Society for Microbiology, 2015-09-15) van Rensburg, Julia J.; Lin, Huaiying; Gao, Xiang; Toh, Evelyn; Fortney, Kate R.; Ellinger, Sheila; Zwickl, Beth; Janowicz, Diane M.; Katz, Barry P.; Nelson, David E.; Dong, Qunfeng; Spinola, Stanley M.; Department of Microbiology & Immunology, IU School of Medicine
    The influence of the skin microbiota on host susceptibility to infectious agents is largely unexplored. The skin harbors diverse bacterial species that may promote or antagonize the growth of an invading pathogen. We developed a human infection model for Haemophilus ducreyi in which human volunteers are inoculated on the upper arm. After inoculation, papules form and either spontaneously resolve or progress to pustules. To examine the role of the skin microbiota in the outcome of H. ducreyi infection, we analyzed the microbiomes of four dose-matched pairs of “resolvers” and “pustule formers” whose inoculation sites were swabbed at multiple time points. Bacteria present on the skin were identified by amplification and pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity between the preinfection microbiomes of infected sites showed that sites from the same volunteer clustered together and that pustule formers segregated from resolvers (P = 0.001, permutational multivariate analysis of variance [PERMANOVA]), suggesting that the preinfection microbiomes were associated with outcome. NMDS using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity of the endpoint samples showed that the pustule sites clustered together and were significantly different than the resolved sites (P = 0.001, PERMANOVA), suggesting that the microbiomes at the endpoint differed between the two groups. In addition to H. ducreyi, pustule-forming sites had a greater abundance of Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Micrococcus, Corynebacterium, Paracoccus, and Staphylococcus species, whereas resolved sites had higher levels of Actinobacteria and Propionibacterium species. These results suggest that at baseline, resolvers and pustule formers have distinct skin bacterial communities which change in response to infection and the resultant immune response.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A (p)ppGpp-Null Mutant of Haemophilus ducreyi Is Partially Attenuated in Humans Due to Multiple Conflicting Phenotypes
    (American Society for Microbiology (ASM), 2014-08) Holley, Concerta; Gangaiah, Dharanesh; Li, Wei; Fortney, Kate R.; Janowicz, Diane M.; Ellinger, Sheila; Zwickl, Beth; Katz, Barry P.; Spinola, Stanley M.; Department of Microbiology & Immunology, IU School of Medicine
    (p)ppGpp responds to nutrient limitation through a global change in gene regulation patterns to increase survival. The stringent response has been implicated in the virulence of several pathogenic bacterial species. Haemophilus ducreyi, the causative agent of chancroid, has homologs of both relA and spoT, which primarily synthesize and hydrolyze (p)ppGpp in Escherichia coli. We constructed relA and relA spoT deletion mutants to assess the contribution of (p)ppGpp to H. ducreyi pathogenesis. Both the relA single mutant and the relA spoT double mutant failed to synthesize (p)ppGpp, suggesting that relA is the primary synthetase of (p)ppGpp in H. ducreyi. Compared to the parent strain, the double mutant was partially attenuated for pustule formation in human volunteers. The double mutant had several phenotypes that favored attenuation, including increased sensitivity to oxidative stress. The increased sensitivity to oxidative stress could be complemented in trans. However, the double mutant also exhibited phenotypes that favored virulence. When grown to the mid-log phase, the double mutant was significantly more resistant than its parent to being taken up by human macrophages and exhibited increased transcription of lspB, which is involved in resistance to phagocytosis. Additionally, compared to the parent, the double mutant also exhibited prolonged survival in the stationary phase. In E. coli, overexpression of DksA compensates for the loss of (p)ppGpp; the H. ducreyi double mutant expressed higher transcript levels of dksA than the parent strain. These data suggest that the partial attenuation of the double mutant is likely the net result of multiple conflicting phenotypes.