PMID:23532847

Citation	Sumitomo, T, Nakata, M, Higashino, M, Terao, Y and Kawabata, S' (2013) Group A streptococcal cysteine protease cleaves epithelial junctions and contributes to bacterial translocation. J. Biol. Chem. '
Abstract	Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is an important human pathogen that possesses an ability to translocate across the epithelial barrier. In this study, culture supernatants of tested GAS strains showed proteolytic activity against human occludin and E-cadherin. Utilizing various types of protease inhibitors and amino acid sequence analysis, we identified streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin B (SpeB) as the proteolytic factor that cleaves E-cadherin in the region neighboring the calcium-binding sites within the extracellular domain. The cleaving activities of culture supernatants from several GAS isolates were correlated with the amount of active SpeB, while culture supernatants from an speB mutant showed no such activities. Of note, the wild type strain efficiently translocated across the epithelial monolayer along with cleavage of occludin and E-cadherin, whereas deletion of the speB gene compromised those activities. Moreover, destabilization of the junctional proteins was apparently relieved in cells infected with the speB mutant, as compared with those infected with the wild type. Taken together, our findings indicate that the proteolytic efficacy of SpeB in junctional degradation allows GAS to invade deeper into tissues.
Links	PubMed Online version:10.1074/jbc.M113.459875
Keywords
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Annotations

Gene product	Qualifier	GO Term	Evidence Code	with/from	Aspect	Extension	Notes	Status
STRPY:SPEB		GO:0044409: entry into host	ECO:0000315: mutant phenotype evidence used in manual assertion		P		Figure 5	complete

References

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