Expanding the genetic code in Salmonella

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Salmonella infection is a common bacterial disease that affects the intestinal tract. It is estimated to cause about 1.2 million illnesses in the Unitd States each year, with about 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths. A deep knowledge of its physiology and pathogenesis is important for identifying novel targets to develop new antimicrobial agents due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant Salmonella strains. Currently, the genetic code expansion strategy has been widely used to incorporate various unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into target proteins to solve the problems which are difficult or impossible to address by most classical methods due to the limited chemical diversity of the 20 natural amino acids. However, very few studies have been reported to incorporate UAAs in human pathogens such as Salmonella. Here, we will expand the genetic code in Salmonella by introducing an orthogonal translation system (OTS) which can efficiently incorporate various UAAs into target proteins to form labels and probes for confocal microscopy, paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), or fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) (Aim 1). For proof-of-concept, we will use this OTS to investigate the spatial organization of bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) in Salmonella which has not been studied before (Aim 2). BMCs are large protein complexes containing viral capsid-like shells and encapsulated enzymes involved in various metabolic pathways. Studies have implicated 1,2-propanediol and ethanolamine degradations, which occur within BMCs, in Salmonella pathogenesis. We will incorporate p-azido-phenylalanine into the shell proteins of BMCs in Salmonella, followed by a Cu-free click reaction to form small-sized fluorescent probes for dynamic imaging to overcome the potential interference with the assemblies and functions of BMCs from the commonly used fluorescent protein tags. The spatial distribution of BMCs, the segregation of BMCs during cell divisions, key proteins of BMCs responsible for the spatial organization, and the interactions between BMC proteins and cytoskeletal components will be determined. These studies will provide new information and may reveal new paradigms in our knowledge of BMCs. In summary, we will show a practical application of the genetic code expansion strategy in studies of bacteria. Since Salmonella is an important model pathogen, the OTS we developed in this proposal could be broadly used by many laboratories to facilitate studies of microbial pathogenesis.