Gram-negative bacteria produce outer membrane vesicles that play a role in the delivery of virulence factors to host cells. OMVs are released by the budding of the Gram-negative bacterial envelope. Secreted OMVs can disseminate far from the cell and i...
Gram-negative bacteria produce outer membrane vesicles that play a role in the delivery of virulence factors to host cells. OMVs are released by the budding of the Gram-negative bacterial envelope. Secreted OMVs can disseminate far from the cell and impart biological functions on the environment and on other cells, including playing a role in pathogenesis, quorum signaling, nutrient acquisition, biofilm formation and horizontal gene transfer. OMVs are spherical and bilayered nanovesicles with an average diameter of 20-300 nm. They are composed of LPS, phospholipids, outer membrane proteins, periplasmic proteins, cytosolic proteins, PAMPs, and even nucleic acids. OMVs allow enzymes to reach distant targets in a concentrated, protected, and targeted form. An important mechanism of OMV delivery to consider is endocytosis into eukaryotic cells which bypasses the need for heterotypic fusion of a bacterial outer membrane bilayer into a eukaryotic plasma membrane and results in the entry of the entire OMV into the interior of the cell. Several virulence factors which are packaged in OMVs have been well characterised in Gram-negative bacteria. However, little is known about the membrane-derived vesicles produced by Gram-positive bacteria. The present study examined the production of MVs from S. aureus and investigated the delivery of MVs to host cells and subsequent cytotoxicity. Four S. aureus strains tested, two type strains and two clinical isolates, produced spherical nanovesicles during in vitro culture. MVs were also produced during in vivo infection of a clinical S. aureus isolate in a mouse pneumonia model. Proteomic analysis showed that 143 different proteins were identified in the S. aureus-derived MVs The cytoplasmic proteins were the most abundant (67.1%), followed by membrane proteins (19.6%). Pathogenesis-associated proteins, including IgG-binding protein, ferritin, putative ferrichrome-binding lipoprotein precursor, ABC transporter extracellular binding protein, and lipoprotein for high-affinity iron ion transport, and proteins associated with antibiotic resistance, including β-lactamase, penicillin-binding protein 2, and membrane protein oxaA, were found in the S. aureus MVs, which suggest that bacterial effectors packaged in the MVs are directly associated with bacterial pathogenesis.
The delivery of bacterial components to host cells via the MVs and delivery mechanism of MVs into host cells were determined and showed that MVs were interacted with the plasma membrane of host cells via a cholesterol-rich membrane microdomain and then delivered their component protein A to host cells within 30 min. These suggest that MVs are a vehicle for the delivery of bacterial components to host cells. Intact S. aureus MVs induced apoptosis of HEp-2 cells in a dose-dependent manner, whereas lysed MVs neither delivered their component into the cytosol of host cells nor induced cytotoxicity. In conclusion, this study is the first report that S. aureus MVs are an important vehicle for delivery of bacterial effector molecules to host cells.