Competition is the basis of the transport mechanism of the NhaB Na+/H+ exchanger from Klebsiella pneumoniae

PLoS One. 2017 Jul 27;12(7):e0182293. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182293. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Na+/H+ exchange is essential for survival of all organisms, having a role in the regulation of the intracellular Na+ concentration, pH and cell volume. Furthermore, Na+/H+ exchangers were shown to be involved in the virulence of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, indicating they might be potential targets for novel antibiotic treatments. The model system for Na+/H+ exchangers is the NhaA transporter from Escherichia coli, EcNhaA. Therefore, the general transport mechanism of NhaA exchangers is currently well characterized. However, much less is known about NhaB exchangers, with only a limited number of studies available. The pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae, which is a major source of nosocomial infection, possesses three electrogenic Na+/H+ exchangers, KpNhaA1, KpNhaA2 and KpNhaB, none of which have been previously investigated. Our aim in this study was to functionally characterize KpNhaB using solid supported membrane-based electrophysiology as the main investigation technique, and thus provide the first electrophysiological investigation of an NhaB Na+/H+ exchanger. We found that NhaB can be described by the same competition-based mechanism that was shown to be valid for electrogenic NhaA and NapA, and for electroneutral NhaP Na+/H+ exchangers. For comparison we also characterized the activity of KpNhaA1 and KpNhaA2 and found that the three exchangers have complementary activity profiles, which is likely a survival advantage for K. pneumoniae when faced with environments of different salinity and pH. This underlines their importance as potential antibiotic drug targets.

MeSH terms

  • Acridine Orange / metabolism
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism*
  • Biological Transport / drug effects
  • Cell Membrane / drug effects
  • Cell Membrane / metabolism
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Kinetics
  • Klebsiella pneumoniae / metabolism*
  • Lithium / pharmacology
  • Microbial Viability / drug effects
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sodium / pharmacology
  • Sodium-Hydrogen Exchangers / chemistry
  • Sodium-Hydrogen Exchangers / metabolism*
  • Substrate Specificity / drug effects

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Sodium-Hydrogen Exchangers
  • Lithium
  • Sodium
  • Acridine Orange

Grants and funding

OC and CG were supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI (uefiscdi.ro), project number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0604. MPR and KF were supported by the DIP (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, dfg.de, German-Israeli Project Cooperation #LA3655/1-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.