1. Academic Validation
  2. Sensing of mycobacterial arabinogalactan by galectin-9 exacerbates mycobacterial infection

Sensing of mycobacterial arabinogalactan by galectin-9 exacerbates mycobacterial infection

  • EMBO Rep. 2021 Jul 5;22(7):e51678. doi: 10.15252/embr.202051678.
Xiangyang Wu 1 Yong Wu 2 Ruijuan Zheng 1 Fen Tang 1 Lianhua Qin 1 Detian Lai 1 Lu Zhang 3 Lingming Chen 4 Bo Yan 5 Hua Yang 1 Yang Wang 1 Feifei Li 2 Jinyu Zhang 3 Fei Wang 1 Lin Wang 1 Yajuan Cao 1 Mingtong Ma 1 Zhonghua Liu 1 Jianxia Chen 1 Xiaochen Huang 1 Jie Wang 1 Ruiliang Jin 1 Peng Wang 6 Qin Sun 6 Wei Sha 6 Liangdong Lyu 7 Pedro Moura-Alves 8 9 Anca Dorhoi 8 10 Gang Pei 8 Peng Zhang 11 Jiayu Chen 12 Shaorong Gao 12 Felix Randow 13 Gucheng Zeng 4 Chang Chen 11 Xin-Shan Ye 2 Stefan H E Kaufmann 8 14 15 Haipeng Liu 1 8 16 17 Baoxue Ge 1 16
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Shanghai Key Lab of Tuberculosis, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  • 3 State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
  • 4 Department of Microbiology, Key Laboratory for Tropical Diseases Control of the Ministry of Education, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
  • 5 Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
  • 6 Department of TB, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 7 Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology of the Ministry of Education/Ministry of Health, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
  • 8 Department of Immunology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany.
  • 9 Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
  • 10 Institute of Immunology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany.
  • 11 Department of Thoracic Surgery, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 12 Clinical and Translational Research Center of Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Signaling and Disease Research, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
  • 13 Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
  • 14 Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
  • 15 Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany.
  • 16 Clinical and Translational Research Center, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 17 Central Laboratory, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Abstract

Mycobacterial arabinogalactan (AG) is an essential cell wall component of mycobacteria and a frequent structural and bio-synthetical target for anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug development. Here, we report that mycobacterial AG is recognized by Galectin-9 and exacerbates mycobacterial Infection. Administration of AG-specific Aptamers inhibits cellular infiltration caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) or Mycobacterium bovis BCG, and moderately increases survival of Mtb-infected mice or Mycobacterium marinum-infected zebrafish. AG interacts with carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) 2 of Galectin-9 with high affinity, and Galectin-9 associates with transforming growth factor β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) via CRD2 to trigger subsequent activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) as well as induction of the expression of Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs). Moreover, deletion of Galectin-9 or inhibition of MMPs blocks AG-induced pathological impairments in the lung, and the AG-galectin-9 axis aggravates the process of Mtb Infection in mice. These results demonstrate that AG is an important virulence factor of mycobacteria and Galectin-9 is a novel receptor for Mtb and other mycobacteria, paving the way for the development of novel effective TB immune modulators.

Keywords

galectin-9; matrix metalloproteinases; mycobacterial arabinogalactan; transforming growth factor β-activated kinase 1; virulence factor.

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