Transcriptional Analysis of 10 Selected Genes in a Model of Penicillin G Induced Persistence of Chlamydophila psittaci in HeLa Cells

• Published in: Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol. 25; no. 8; pp. 1246 - 1256
• Main Authors: Hu, Yanqun, Chen, Lili, Wang, Chuan, Xie, Yafeng, Chen, Zhixi, Liu, Liangzhuan, Su, Zehong, Wu, Yimou
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) 한국미생물·생명공학회 01.08.2015
• Subjects: Chlamydophila psittaci - drug effects; Chlamydophila psittaci - genetics; Epithelial Cells - microbiology; Gene Expression Profiling; HeLa Cells; Humans; Penicillin G - metabolism; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; Time Factors; 생물학; transcription; Chlamydophila psittaci; persistent infection; penicillin G
• ISSN: 1017-7825; 1738-8872
• DOI: 10.4014/jmb.1502.02031

Chlamydophila psittaci is an important intracellular pathogen. Persistent infection is an important state of the host-parasite interaction in this chlamydial infection, which plays a significant role in spreading the organism within animal populations and in causing chronic chlamydiosis and serious sequelae. In this study, a C. psittaci persistent infection cell model was induced by penicillin G, and real-time quantitative PCR was used to study the transcriptional levels of 10 C. psittaci genes (dnaA, dnaK, ftsW, ftsY, grpE, rpsD, incC, omcB, CPSIT_0846, and CPSIT_0042) in acute and penicillin-G-induced persistent infection cultures. Compared with the acute cultures, the penicillin-G-treated cultures showed a reduced chlamydial inclusion size and a significantly decreased number of elementary body particles. Additionally, some enlarged aberrant reticulate body particles were present in the penicillin- G-treated cultures but not the acute ones. The expression levels of genes encoding products for cell division (FtsW, FtsY) and outer membrane protein E encoding gene (CPSIT_0042) were downregulated (p < 0.05) from 6 h post-infection onward in the persistent infection cultures. Also from 6 h post-infection, the expression levels of DnaA, DnaK, IncC, RpsD, GrpE, and CPSIT_0846 were upregulated (p < 0.05); however, the expression level of OmcB in the persistent infection was almost the same as that in the acute infection (p > 0.05). These results provide new insight regarding molecular activities that accompany persistence of C. psittaci, which may play important roles in the pathogenesis of C. psittaci infection.