Chlamydia trachomatis Plasmid Protein pORF5 Up-Regulates ZFAS1 to Promote Host Cell Survival via MAPK/p38 Pathway.

Yating Wen,Hongliang Chen,Qiulin Huang,Yuqi Zhao,Mingyi Shu,Zhongyu Li,Shengmei Su,Fangzhen Luo,Lanhua Zhao

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.593295

Abstract

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been demonstrated to play essential roles in many diseases. However, few studies have shown that lncRNAs take part in the pathogenesis of Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis). Here, we used a lncRNA microarray to detect the global lncRNA expression profiles in HeLa cells transfected with pORF5 plasmid protein, an important virulence factor for C. trachomatis. The differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs screened by microarray were selected for validation by quantitative real-time PCR. The up-regulated lncRNA zinc finger antisense 1 (ZFAS1) was presumed to involved in MAPK pathways by bioinformatics analysis. Inhibition of ZFAS1 decreased the apoptotic rate of pORF5 and reduced the infectivity of C. trachomatis, and MAPK/p38 pathway was involved in anti-apoptotic effect induced by ZFAS1. Therefore, the present study confirmed that pORF5 up-regulates ZFAS1 to promote host cell survival via MAPK/p38 pathway and influences the infectivity of C. trachomatis.

Highlights

Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis) is an obligate intracellular, gram-negative pathogen responsible for many diseases such as trachoma and sexually transmitted diseases
LncRNAs and mRNAs expression profiles have been used widely to uncover the potential molecular mechanisms contributing to the pathogenesis of many diseases, such as cancers, viral infections, and some intracellular bacterial infections
We investigated the expression of Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and mRNAs in pORF5transfected HeLa cells

Summary

Introduction

Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis) is an obligate intracellular, gram-negative pathogen responsible for many diseases such as trachoma and sexually transmitted diseases. Genital infection of C. trachomatis is most common, it usually leads to pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal factor infertility or ectopic pregnancy because of the scarring of the reproductive tract induced by asymptomatic infection (Zhong, 2018). This pathogen alternates between two morphological forms, the infectious elementary body (EB) and the intracellular, non-infectious reticulate body (RB) (Bastidas et al, 2013). C. trachomatis delivers virulence proteins called effectors into the host cell by secretion system. These alternated proteins take part in cellular processes including apoptosis and autophagy (Lei et al, 2017), indicating that pORF5 plays a key role in the pathogenesis of C. trachomatis

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