Sarkosyl is a weak anionic detergent in which many outer membrane proteins of Gram-negative bacteria are insoluble [29]. We transferred the Sarkosyl-treated proteins to a PVDF membrane and incubated the membrane with PLG and identified bound PLG by reaction with anti-PLG mAbs (Figure 7a). NVP-LDE225 order We used the relative migration rates of the reactive bands to identify the reactive proteins on a duplicate Coomassie-stained polyacrylamide gel (Figure 7b), which were then excised for proteomic analysis by mass spectrometry. Several prominent PLG-binding proteins were noted in the total membrane fraction of FTLVS, all but one of which was found in the Sarkosyl

insoluble fraction (Figure 7b). The identity of the prominent proteins from this assay (Figure 7c) are the products of the following genes: FTL_1328 (outer membrane associated protein, fopA1), FTL_1042 (FKBP-type peptidyl-prolyl Proteasome inhibitor review cis-trans isomerase family protein), FTL_0336 (peptidoglycan-associated lipoprotein), FTL_0421 (hypothetical lipoprotein, lpn-A), and FTL_0645 (hypothetical lipoprotein). Figure 7 Identification of putative PLG-binding proteins of FT. Sarkosyl-soluble and insoluble protein fractions of

FTLVS were separated by SDS-PAGE and transferred to PVDF membrane. Membranes were then blotted with huPLG (3 ug/mL) followed by anti-PLG antibody and HRP-conjugated secondary antibody to detect PLG-binding proteins (Panel A). Protein bands on an Selleck JNK-IN-8 identical Coomassie Blue-stained SDS-PAGE gel corresponding to those identified via blotting (Panel B) were excised and identified using proteomic methodologies (Panel C). Discussion Until recently FT has been considered an intracellular pathogen whose dissemination to tissues distal to the site of initial infection was highly dependent on its ability survive within host macrophages. The observation

that FT can be found in relatively high numbers in the acellular plasma fraction of its mammalian host [15, 16] suggested that FT may have a significant extracellular component to its life cycle and that interactions between FT and one or more plasma proteins could contribute to its ability to disseminate within Demeclocycline the host. There are a number of examples of bacterial pathogens that utilize interactions with host plasma components to enhance their ability to colonize and to penetrate the extracellular matrices of host cells/tissues. A wide range of bacterial pathogens (including Francisella) subvert the destructive mechanisms of the complement cascade by acquiring surface-bound complement control proteins [20, 30–34]. Moreover, a number of Gram-positive bacterial pathogens including streptococcal spp. [35, 36], staphylococcal spp.