Klebsiella pneumoniae is a nosocomial pathogen which naturally secretes lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and cell envelope associated proteins into the environment through the production of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). The loss of the LPS O antigen has been demonstrated in other bacterial species to significantly alter the composition of OMVs. Therefore, this study aimed to comprehensively analyze the impact of O antigen loss on the sub-proteomes of both the outer membrane and secreted OMVs from K. pneumoniae. As determined by LC-MS/MS, OMVs were highly enriched with outer membrane proteins involved in cell wall, membrane, and envelope biogenesis as compared to the source cellular outer membrane. Deletion of wbbO, the enzyme responsible for O antigen attachment to LPS, decreased but did not eliminate this enrichment effect. Additionally, loss of O antigen resulted in OMVs with increased numbers of proteins involved in post-translational modification, protein turnover, and chaperones as compared to secreted vesicles from the wild type. This alteration of OMV composition may be a compensatory mechanism to deal with envelope stress. This comprehensive analysis confirms the highly distinct protein composition of OMVs as compared to their source membrane, and provides evidence for a selective sorting mechanism that involves LPS polysaccharides. These data support the hypothesis that modifications to LPS alters both the mechanics of protein sorting and the contents of secreted OMVs and significantly impacts the protein composition of the outer membrane.

Antibiotic-resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae often exhibit porin loss. In this study, we investigated how porin loss impacted the composition of secreted outer membrane vesicles as well as their ability to trigger proinflammatory cytokine secretion by macrophages. We hypothesize that porin loss associated with antibiotic resistance will directly impact both the composition of outer membrane vesicles and their interactions with phagocytic cells. Using clonally related clinical isolates of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-positive Klebsiella pneumoniae with different patterns of porin expression, we demonstrated that altered expression of OmpK35 and OmpK36 results in broad alterations to the protein profile of secreted vesicles. Additionally, the level of OmpA incorporation was elevated in strains lacking a single porin. Porin loss significantly impacted macrophage inflammatory responses to purified vesicles. Outer membrane vesicles lacking both OmpK35 and OmpK36 elicited significantly lower levels of proinflammatory cytokine secretion than vesicles from strains expressing one or both porins. These data demonstrate that antibiotic resistance-associated porin loss has a broad and significant effect on both the composition of outer membrane vesicles and their interactions with phagocytic cells, which may impact bacterial survival and inflammatory reactions in the host.K lebsiella pneumoniae is a nosocomial pathogen responsible for as many as 20% of all cases of culture-positive blood cultures and bacterial sepsis (1). Alarmingly, up to 50% of these infections are resistant to most current antibiotics (2, 3). The majority of resistant Klebsiella isolates exhibit both expression of an extendedspectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) and halted expression of at least one outer membrane porin (4, 5). Porin loss has been clearly shown to enhance levels of antibiotic resistance, and ESBL-positive K. pneumoniae isolates commonly exhibit loss of OmpK35 and OmpK36, which both function in nonspecific transport across the outer membrane (6-8).While changes to the porin profile of bacteria are well documented to be associated with enhanced antibiotic resistance (9, 10), the role that these porins play in pathogenesis has not been fully investigated. In vitro experiments using mutants of K. pneumoniae lacking OmpK36 have demonstrated that loss of OmpK36 results in increased phagocytic killing of the bacteria, and in vivo experiments have demonstrated decreased virulence and bacterial survival of strains lacking OmpK36 in a mouse model (11)(12)(13)(14). Data from these studies consistently indicate that loss of OmpK36 results in an increase in antibiotic resistance paired with a decrease in fitness and ability to survive host immune responses. It is unclear how resistant strains of Klebsiella are able to persist in host tissues when porin loss renders the bacteria more susceptible to phagocytic clearance.The capsule is the best understood of the virulence factors of Klebsiella, cloaking the bacterial outer surface from immu...