Mycoplasma pneumoniae is the leading cause of pneumonia in older children and young adults. Fundamental aspects of mycoplasma cell and molecular biology are poorly understood, despite the significant impact of mycoplasmas on public health and agriculture. More effective means of prevention and control of mycoplasma infections requires that the basic biological processes of these unique, cell wall-less prokaryotes be characterized in more detail. M. pneumoniae infections in humans are transmitted by aerosol, leading to colonization of host respiratory epithelium at the base of the cilia. M. pneumoniae cells move by gliding motility, which undoubtedly contributes to their ability to localize successfully to a nutritionally preferred site. Therefore, gliding motility probably constitutes a virulence factor, but the contribution of gliding to virulence has not been determined. Gliding motility is poorly understood in bacteria in general and in mycoplasmas in particular. Remarkably, no homologs to known motility genes, either gliding or otherwise, have been identified in the genome sequence of M. pneumoniae. Recent studies revealed that the loss of protein P30 in the M. pneumoniae cytadherence mutant II-3 also results in an abnormal cell morphology and loss of gliding motility. However, the hemadsorbing revertant of this mutant, designated II-3R, remains non-motile, clearly distinguishing the multiple functions of P30 in adherence and motility. Loss of motility correlates with a difference in the primary sequence of the revertant P30 over a 16-amino acid region. This proposal focuses on structure-function analysis of P30 in the context of motility, assessment of the role of motility in virulence in hamster tracheal rings in organ culture, and identification and analysis of other M. pneumoniae genes associated with gliding motility. Derivatives of recombinant P30 will be constructed and evaluated for their impact on motility and adherence in a P30 background. In addition, other motility mutants will be generated by transposition and identified on the basis of loss of satellite growth. Motility mutants retaining the ability to cytadhere will be characterized further. The genes insertionally inactivated will be identified by sequencing and comparison to the genome sequence. Excision revertants will be isolated, and the motility phenotype will be rescued by complementation with the recombinant wild-type gene by transposon delivery. The proteins associated with gliding motility will be characterized in detail, including determination of subcellular localization. Chemokinesis will be assessed by using a Boyden chamber or compartmentalized petri plates. Cell morphology will be determined by scanning electron microscopy.
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