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The group B streptococcus (GBS) is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen with the ability to cause invasive disease. While the ability of GBS to invade a number of host-cell types has been clearly demonstrated, the invasion process is not well understood at the molecular level. What has been well established is that modulation of host-cell actin microfilaments is essential for GBS invasion to occur. Phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) is a key regulator of the cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells. Our goal in this investigation was to explore the role of the PI3K/Akt signalling pathway in epithelial cell invasion by GBS. The epithelial cell invasion process was mimicked using the HeLa 229 cell-culture model. Treating HeLa cells with chemical inhibitors of PI3K, Akt or Ras prior to bacterial infection inhibited GBS invasion but not attachment; treatment with 30 μM LY294002 (PI3K inhibitor) reduced GBS invasion by 75 %, 20 μM l-6-hydroxymethyl-chiro-inositol 2-(R)-2-O-methyl-3-O-octadecylcarbonate (ICIO) (Akt inhibitor) reduced GBS invasion by 50 %, and 10 μM manumycin A (Ras inhibitor) inhibited GBS invasion by 90 %. Genetic inactivation of the p85α or p110α PI3K subunits in HeLa cells also reduced GBS invasion by 55 and 30 %, respectively. Western blot analysis revealed that phosphorylation of host-cell Akt and glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) occurs in response to GBS infection, and that this is mediated upstream by PI3K. Infection of HeLa cells with GBS triggers pro-survival signalling and protects the HeLa cells from camptothecin-induced caspase-3 cleavage. The results from this investigation show that GBS both requires and activates the PI3K/Akt host-cell signalling pathway during invasion of epithelial cells.
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