Influence of point mutations on the electrophysiological properties of a bacterial porin and its interaction with a β-lactam antibiotic
von Annika Bartsch
Datum der mündl. Prüfung:2018-07-12
Erschienen:2018-09-19
Betreuer:Prof. Dr. Claudia Steinem
Gutachter:Prof. Dr. Claudia Steinem
Gutachter:Prof. Dr. Ulf Diederichsen
Dateien
Name:Dissertation_Bartsch.pdf
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Format:PDF
Zusammenfassung
Englisch
The high rate of complications and mortality in hospitals due to multidrug resistances (MDR) of gram-negative bacteria demonstrates the urgency to understand the underlying mecha-nisms. One common cause of MDR are mutations in bacterial porins, which are β-barrel pro-teins responsible for the uptake of antibiotics through the outer bacterial membrane. They have a periplasmic and an extracellular side, which are separated by the constriction region (CR) in the center of the pore. The CR is the narrowest point of the pore and a key region for antibiotic binding and permeation. Upon mutations in this region, the interaction between porin and antibiotic can be altered, leading to an impaired antibiotic permeation and thus increasing resistance. In this work, the influence of mutations of the major porin PorB of Neisseria meningitidis on the interaction with the β-lactam antibiotic ampicillin was investigated using the planar patch-clamp technique supported by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In electrophysi-ology, the interaction between channel and substrate can be detected by short blockages of the open channel conductance, caused by a bound molecule. Examining the mutants G103K and G103D allowed analyzing the effect of a large residue and an additional positive (G >K) or negative charge (G >D) at the CR on the electrophysiological properties of the pores and the interaction with ampicillin. First, the electrophysiological properties of PorB wild type (wt) and the mutants were char-acterized in absence of ampicillin. A strong reduction of the open channel conductance upon the mutation G >K was found, whereas the mutation G >D only had a small influence. The alteration of the pore’s inner electric field due to the mutation G¬ >K is a probable cause for this finding. The open channel noise, however, was strongly increased due to the mutation G >D, supposedly due to additional electrostatic repulsions of the negative charges at the CR. The electrophysiological measurements in the presence of ampicillin showed an interaction of ampicillin with PorB wt and the mutant G103K, but not with the mutant G103D, which can be rationalized by a destabilization of the ampicillin binding site due to the increased elec-trostatic repulsion at the CR. Thus, the interaction with ampicillin was only compared be-tween PorB wt and PorB G103K. Ampicillin blocks the PorB channels only when added to their extracellular sides. Together with the asymmetric location of the binding site at the extracellular side found by MD simula-tions, this suggests a high energy barrier for ampicillin entering from the periplasmic side. Ampicillin is bound longer in the G103K pore than in the PorB wt pore and is more often re-leased back to the extracellular lumen, indicating a higher energy barrier for ampicillin per-meation through the mutant than through the wild type. This is ascribed to the different ori-entations ampicillin adopts upon entering the CR of the two porins. Hence, the mutation G >K substantially alters the interaction between PorB and ampicillin and probably reduces its permeation.
Keywords: Porin; antibiotics; electrophysiology