A MATE-Family Efflux Pump Rescues the Escherichia coli 8-Oxoguanine-Repair-Deficient Mutator Phenotype and Protects Against H2O2 Killing

Abstract

Hypermutation may accelerate bacterial evolution in the short-term. In the long-term, however, hypermutators (cells with an increased rate of mutation) can be expected to be at a disadvantage due to the accumulation of deleterious mutations. Therefore, in theory, hypermutators are doomed to extinction unless they compensate the elevated mutational burden (deleterious load). Different mechanisms capable of restoring a low mutation rate to hypermutators have been proposed. By choosing an 8-oxoguanine-repair-deficient (GO-deficient) Escherichia coli strain as a hypermutator model, we investigated the existence of genes able to rescue the hypermutable phenotype by multicopy suppression. Using an in vivo-generated mini-MudII4042 genomic library and a mutator screen, we obtained chromosomal fragments that decrease the rate of mutation in a mutT-deficient strain. Analysis of a selected clone showed that the expression of NorM is responsible for the decreased mutation rate in 8-oxoguanine-repair-deficient (mutT, mutY, and mutM mutY) strains. NorM is a member of the multidrug and toxin extrusion (MATE) family of efflux pumps whose role in E. coli cell physiology remains unknown. Our results indicate that NorM may act as a GO-system backup decreasing AT to CG and GC to TA transversions. In addition, the ability of NorM to reduce the level of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a GO-deficient strain and protect the cell from oxidative stress, including protein carbonylation, suggests that it can extrude specific molecules—byproducts of bacterial metabolism—that oxidize the guanine present in both DNA and nucleotide pools. Altogether, our results indicate that NorM protects the cell from specific ROS when the GO system cannot cope with the damage.