Surface presentation of Shigella flexneri invasion plasmid antigens requires the products of the spa locus.

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An avirulent, invasion plasmid insertion mutant of Shigella flexneri 5 (pHS1059) was restored to the virulence phenotype by transformation with a partial HindIII library of the wild-type invasion plasmid constructed in pBR322. Western immunoblot analysis of pHS1059 whole-cell lysates revealed that the synthesis of the invasion plasmid antigens VirG, IpaA, IpaB, IpaC, and IpaD was similar to that seen in the corresponding isogenic S. flexneri 5 virulent strain, M90T. IpaB and IpaC, however, were not present on the surface of pHS1059 as was found in M90T, suggesting that the transport or presentation of the IpaB and IpaC proteins onto the bacterial surface was defective in the mutant. pHS1059 was complemented by pWR266, which carried contiguous 1.2- and 4.1-kb HindIII fragments of the invasion plasmid. pHS1059(pWR266) cells were positive in the HeLa cell invasion assay as well as colony immunoblot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, using monoclonal antibodies to IpaB and IpaC. These studies established that the antigens were expressed on the surface of the transformed bacteria. In addition, water extraction of pHS1059 and pHS1059(pWR266) whole cells, which can be used to remove IpaB and IpaC antigens from the surface of wild-type M90T bacteria, yielded significant amounts of these antigens from pHS1059(pWR266) but not from pHS1059. Minicell and DNA sequence analysis indicated that several proteins were encoded by pWR266, comprising the spa loci, which were mapped to a region approximately 18 kb upstream of the ipaBCDAR gene cluster. Subcloning and deletion analysis revealed that more than one protein was involved in complementing the Spa- phenotype in pHS1059. One of these proteins, Spa47, showed striking homology to ORF4 of the Bacillus subtilis flaA locus and the fliI gene sequence of Salmonella typhimurium, both of which bear strong resemblance to the alpha and beta subunits of bacterial, mitochondrial, and chloroplast proton-translocating F0F1 ATPases.

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