Research Article

L-Tryptophan represses persister formation via inhibiting bacterial motility and promoting antibiotics absorption

*Author for correspondence: Tel.: +86 531 8838 2042;

E-mail Address: liyan2015@sdu.edu.cn

Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Bo Liu

Shanghai Pudong New Area Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Shanghai, China

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Jingjing Guo

Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Hua Cong

Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Shenyi He

Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Huaiyu Zhou

Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Faliang Zhu

Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Qun Wang

Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Lining Zhang

Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China

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Published Online:4 Jul 2019https://doi.org/10.2217/fmb-2019-0051

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Abstract

Aim: The bacterial persisters have emerged as a huge threat to human health. Here, we investigated the role of L-tryptophan in bacterial persister killing by aminoglycoside antibiotics (AGs). Materials & methods: The relevance to the antibiotic susceptibility of Escherichia coli including transcriptional sequencing, gene expression, intracellular ATP, Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD/NADH), reactive oxygen species and membrane depolarization were determined. Results & conclusion: We found that exogenous L-tryptophan efficiently inhibited AGs-enabled persisters. The flagellar genes were almost significantly downregulated. Besides, the AGs uptake was obviously increased as the result of elevation in proton motive force (PMF) in response to L-tryptophan-mediated NADH production. Taken together, these data supported a novel role of L-tryptophan in eradicating AGs persisters against E. coli.

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Vol. 14, No. 9

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History

Received 20 February 2019

Accepted 9 June 2019

Published online 4 July 2019

Published in print June 2019

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Professor W Liu, State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology, Shandong University for experimental design and comments on manuscript.

Author contributions

Y Li, B Liu, J Guo and H Cong performed the experiments and analyzed the data. S He, H Zhou, F Zhu, Q Wang and L Zhang designed the research. Y Li, H Cong, Q Wang and L Zhang wrote the paper. All authors revised the manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This study is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR201702150067) and Fundamental Research Funds of Shandong University (21300075614053). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

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