Widely found in animal and plant-associated proteobacteria, type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) are potentially capable of facilitating diverse interactions with eukaryotes and/or other bacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa encodes three distinct T6SS haemolysin coregulated protein (Hcp) secretion islands (H1, H2, and H3-T6SS), each involved in different aspects of the bacterium's interaction with other organisms. Here we describe the characterization of a P. aeruginosa H3-T6SS-dependent phospholipase D effector, PldB, and its three tightly linked cognate immunity proteins. PldB targets the periplasm of prokaryotic cells and exerts an antibacterial activity. Surprisingly, PldB also facilitates intracellular invasion of host eukaryotic cells by activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway, revealing it to be a trans-kingdom effector. Our findings imply a potentially widespread T6SS-mediated mechanism, which deploys a single phospholipase effector to influence both prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic hosts.

Two recently sequenced genomes of the insect-pathogenic bacterium Photorhabdus and a large Serratia entomophila plasmid, pADAP, have phage-related loci containing putative toxin effector genes, designated the "Photorhabdus virulence cassettes" (PVCs). In S. entomophila, the single plasmid PVC confers antifeeding activity on larvae of a beetle. Here, we show that recombinant Escherichia coli expressing PVC-containing cosmids from Photorhabdus has injectable insecticidal activity against larvae of the wax moth. Electron microscopy showed that the structure of the PVC products is similar to the structure of the antibacterial R-type pyocins. However, unlike these bacteriocins, the PVC products of Photorhabdus have no demonstrable antibacterial activity. Instead, injection of Photorhabdus PVC products destroys insect hemocytes, which undergo dramatic actin cytoskeleton condensation. Comparison of the genomic organizations of several PVCs showed that they have a conserved phage-like structure with a variable number of putative anti-insect effectors encoded at one end. Expression of these putative effectors directly inside cultured cells showed that they are capable of rearranging the actin cytoskeleton. Together, these data show that the PVCs are functional homologs of the S. entomophila antifeeding genes and encode physical structures that resemble bacteriocins. This raises the interesting hypothesis that the PVC products are bacteriocin-like but that they have been modified to attack eukaryotic host cells.

It was suggested that the enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) gene is a putative candidate oncogene in several types of human cancer. The potential oncogenic role of EZH2 and its clinical/prognostic significance, however, in ovarian carcinoma are unclear. In this study, EZH2 expression was examined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in cohorts of normal and tumorous ovarian tissues. High expression of EZH2 was examined in none of the normal ovaries, in 3% of the cystadenomas, in 23% of the borderline tumors and in 50% of the ovarian carcinomas, respectively. In the ovarian carcinomas, high expression of EZH2 was positively correlated with an ascending histological grade and/or advanced stage of the disease (P < 0.05). Moreover, high expression of EZH2 in ovarian carcinoma was determined to be a strong and an independent predictor of short overall survival (P < 0.05). In ovarian carcinoma HO-8910 and UACC-326 cell lines, EZH2 knockdown by RNA interference led to a G(1) phase cell cycle arrest, reduced cell growth/proliferation and inhibited cell migration and/or invasion in vitro. In addition, EZH2 knockdown was found to reduce transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) expression and increase E-cadherin expression either in the transcript or in the protein levels. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between overexpression of EZH2 and TGF-beta1 in ovarian carcinoma tissues was observed (P < 0.001). These findings suggest a potential important role of EZH2 in the control of cell migration and/or invasion via the regulation of TGF-beta1 expression, and the high expression of EZH2, as detected by IHC, is an independent molecular marker for shortened survival time of patients with ovarian carcinoma.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that regularly causes nosocomial infections in hospitalized patients. The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is responsible for the secretion of numerous virulence effector proteins that can both interfere with competing microbes and manipulate host cells. Here, we report a detailed investigation of a P. aeruginosa H2-T6SS-dependent phospholipase effector, TplE, which acts as a trans-kingdom toxin. Delivery of TplE to the periplasmic space of rival bacteria leads to growth inhibition. Importantly, TplE, also contains a eukaryotic PGAP1-like domain, which targets the host ER apparatus, ultimately leading to disruption of the ER. TplE activity leads to the activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR) through the IRE1α-XBP1 pathway, enhancing autophagic flux. These findings indicate that this T6SS-delivered phospholipase effector is active against both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cellular targets, highlighting the T6SS as a versatile weapon in the Pseudomonas arsenal.

SummaryThe toxin complex ( tc ) genes of bacteria comprise a large and growing family whose mode of action remains obscure. In the insect pathogen Photorhabdus , tc genes encode high molecular weight insecticidal toxins with oral activity against caterpillar pests. One protein, TcdA, has recently been expressed in transgenic plants and shown to confer insect resistance. These toxins therefore represent alternatives to toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) for deployment in transgenic crops. Levels of TcdA expression in transgenic plants were, however, low and the full toxicity associated with the native toxin was not reconstituted. Here we show that increased activity of the toxin TcdA1 requires potentiation by either of two pairs of gene products, TcdB1 and TccC1 or TcdB2 and TccC3. Moreover, these same pairs of proteins can also cross-potentiate a second toxin, TcaA1B1. To elucidate the likely functional domains present in these large proteins, we expressed fragments of each 'toxin' or 'potentiator' gene within mammalian cells. Several domains produced abnormal cellular morphologies leading to cell death, while others showed specific phenotypes such as nuclear translocation. Our results prove that the Tc toxins are complex proteins with multiple functional domains. They also show that both toxin genes and their potentiator pairs will need to be expressed to reconstitute full activity in insect-resistant transgenic plants. Moreover, they suggest that the same potentiator pair will be able to cross-potentiate more than one toxin in a single plant.

Human interacting protein X1 (PinX1) has been identified as a critical telomerase inhibitor and proposed to be a putative tumor suppressor gene. Loss of PinX1 has been found in a large variety of malignancies, but the expression status in epithelial ovarian tumors has not been investigated. In this study, immunohistochemistry for PinX1 protein was performed on a tissue microarray (TMA) of epithelial ovarian tumors (informatively containing 25 cystadenomas, 29 borderline tumors, and 157 invasive carcinomas) and 12 normal ovaries. Receiver-operator curve (ROC) analysis was used to determine cut-off scores for tumor positivity and to evaluate patients' survival status. The threshold for PinX1 positivity was determined to be above 60% (area under the curve = 0.856, P < 0.001) based on the area under the ROC. Positive expression of PinX1 was observed in 100% of normal ovarian tissues, in 84% of cystadenomas, in 75.9% borderline tumors, and 66.2% of ovarian carcinomas. Decreased expression of PinX1 was strongly related to patients with poor prognostic factors regarding presence of lymph node metastasis (P = 0.024), distant metastasis (P < 0.001), and late International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage (P < 0.001). In univariate survival analysis, a highly significant correlation between loss of PinX1 and shortened patient survival (mean, 48.2 months vs 99.2 months, P < 0.001) was displayed. Multivariate analysis demonstrated PinX1 expression (P = 0.027) was evaluated as an independent parameter. Our findings suggest that loss of PinX1 is an adverse independent molecular marker for epithelial ovarian carcinoma patients. PinX1 may be a novel target for telomerase-based anticancer therapy due to inhibiting telomerase activity. (Cancer Sci 2010; 101: 1543-1549 O varian cancer is the leading cause of death from a gynecological malignancy worldwide, with increasing incidence recently in Asian countries such as China and Singapore.(1) Due to the lack of reliable methods of early detection and the absence of specific symptoms, the majority of ovarian cancer patients (70%) were diagnosed at late stage, and the prognosis is very poor with a 5-year survival rate of <20%.(2)

Highlights d eCIS loci are widely distributed among bacteria genomes d eCIS loci encode phage-tail-like proteinaceous machines d eCIS superfamily is grouped into six families with distinct genetic features

No abstract