Extracellular Nucleases of Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus Degrade Neutrophil Extracellular Traps and Impair Macrophage Activity of the Host.

Abstract

Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus causes serious bacteremia in its hosts. However, little is known about how S. equi subsp. zooepidemicus interacts with the host innate immune system, particularly innate cells found in the blood. S. equi subsp. zooepidemicus is capable of evading NET-mediated killing via the actions of its potent extracellular nucleases, ENuc and 5Nuc, which directly degrade the NET DNA backbone to deoxyadenosine. In previous studies, other pathogens have required the synergism of nuclease and 5'-nucleotidase to engage in this self-protective process; however, ENuc and 5Nuc both possess nuclease activity and 5'-nucleotidase activity, highlighting the novelty of this discovery. Furthermore, deoxyadenosine impairs phagocytosis but not the intracellular bactericidal activity of macrophages. Here we describe a novel mechanism for S. equi subsp. zooepidemicus extracellular nucleases in NET degradation, which may provide new insights into the pathogen immune evasion mechanism and the prevention and treatment of bacterial disease.