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Gradual pediocin PA-1 resistance in Enterococcus faecalis confers cross-protection to diverse pore-forming cationic antimicrobial peptides displaying changes in cell wall and mannose PTS expression

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Abstract

Due to innate and acquired resistance in Enterococcus faecalis against most antibiotics, identification of new alternatives has increased interest in diverse populations of potent cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs) for treatment and natural food biopreservation. The CAMPs, after crossing the cell wall to the periplasmic space, kill their target strain by forming pores in the cell membrane. However, reports of resistance against these CAMPs necessitated the understanding of step(s) interfered with while acquiring this resistance, for designing effective CAMP analogs. In this direction, we selected stable and gradual dose-dependent pediocin PA-1 single exposure resistant (Pedr) mutants of E. faecalis, which conferred cross-protection to diverse CAMPs, viz., HNP-1, nisin and alamethicin but not to polymyxin B, lysozyme and vancomycin. With these Pedr mutants of E. faecalis there was: a gradual neutralization in cell wall surface charge involving D-alanylation of wall teichoic acids (WTA) and lipoteichoic acids (LTA), increase in cell-surface hydrophobicity, increased cell aggregation and biofilm formation and ultra-structural changes in the cell wall, and a reduction of periplasmic space. In addition, a gradual decrease in expression of mannose PTS two (mpt) operon was also observed with distinct changes in growth rate achieving the same biomass production during the stationary phase. These results show that resistance to these CAMPs is not due to mpt directly acting as a docking molecule but due to changes in the cell wall, which increased the permeability barrier to CAMPs diffusion to reach the periplasmic space.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Director, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, India for providing general support during this period of research study. The study was supported by the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) Project, ICAR. We thank Dr. S. K. Tomar, Principal Scientist, Dairy Microbiology Division, NDRI, Karnal, India for helping us in carrying out scanning electron microscopy, and we are also thankful to All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India for allowing us to use the central facility for transmission electron microscopy.

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  1. Division of Animal Biochemistry, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India

    Rashmi Kumariya, Shiv Kumar Sood, Yudhishthir Singh Rajput & Anita Kumari Garsa

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  1. Rashmi Kumariya
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  2. Shiv Kumar Sood
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  3. Yudhishthir Singh Rajput
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Kumariya, R., Sood, S.K., Rajput, Y.S. et al. Gradual pediocin PA-1 resistance in Enterococcus faecalis confers cross-protection to diverse pore-forming cationic antimicrobial peptides displaying changes in cell wall and mannose PTS expression. Ann Microbiol 65, 721–732 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-014-0912-1

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