Metal-independent effects of calprotectin on cocultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus involve alkylquinolone production

Abstract

The current working model of the innate immune protein calprotectin (CP) focuses on its metal-sequestering activity, which contributes to host defense against infection. Recently, CP was reported to enhance the survival of Staphylococcus aureus in coculture with Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a metal-independent manner. This prior work indicated that the CP protein scaffold, even in the absence of its metal-binding sites, possesses activities that impact interspecies dynamics between these bacterial pathogens. In this study, we employ {Delta}{Delta}, a CP variant lacking both functional metal-binding sites, to assess the responses of each pathogen to the CP protein scaffold in monoculture and coculture. Using dual-species transcriptomics, we report that {Delta}{Delta} treatment induced gene expression changes indicative of cell envelope modifications for both P. aeruginosa and S. aureus during coculture. The presence of the CP protein scaffold also attenuated the production of the quorum sensing molecule C4-homoserine lactone and the anti-staphylococcal alkylquinolone (AQ) metabolite 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline N-oxide. Cocultures with S. aureus and P. aeruginosa mutants defective in AQ biosynthesis demonstrated that AQ production was required for {Delta}{Delta} to impact expression of membrane remodeling genes in both species during coculture. Furthermore, we showed that in the absence of AQ production, the effect of CP on S. aureus in coculture resembled that of Fe depletion. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that the functional versatility of CP extends beyond multi-metal sequestration and that its intertwined metal-dependent and -independent activities have important consequences for bacterial physiology and polymicrobial interactions. IMPORTANCERecent studies of the innate immune protein calprotectin (CP), which is known for its metal-sequestering ability and contributions to nutritional immunity, have uncovered that the protein also exerts metal-independent activities on bacterial pathogens. In this work, we investigate the metal-independent effects of CP on the interspecies dynamics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, two high-priority pathogens that co-colonize various polymicrobial infection sites. We report that the ability of the CP protein scaffold to attenuate the anti-staphylococcal activity of P. aeruginosa results from perturbed quorum sensing and reduced production of alkylquinolone (AQ) metabolites. We further show that pseudomonal AQs contribute to cell envelope remodeling responses exhibited by both pathogens in the presence of the CP protein scaffold. These results afford an updated working model wherein both canonical metal-dependent and noncanonical metal-independent activities of CP elicit physiological changes in both pathogens, resulting in perturbed coculture dynamics.