Biogenesis of the Spacious Coxiella-Containing Vacuole Depends on Host Transcription Factors TFEB and TFE3

Abstract

Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen that replicates inside the lysosome-derived Coxiella-containing vacuole (CCV). To establish this unique niche, C. burnetii requires the Dot/Icm type IV secretion system (T4SS) to translocate a cohort of effector proteins into the host cell, which modulate multiple cellular processes. To characterize the host-pathogen interactions that occur during C. burnetii infection, stable-isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC)-based proteomics was used to identify changes in the host proteome during infection of a human-derived macrophage cell line. These data revealed that the abundances of many proteins involved in host cell autophagy and lysosome biogenesis were increased in infected cells. Thus, the role of the host transcription factors TFEB and TFE3, which regulate the expression of a network of genes involved in autophagy and lysosomal biogenesis, were examined in the context of C. burnetii infection. During infection with C. burnetii, both TFEB and TFE3 were activated, as demonstrated by the transport of these proteins from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. The nuclear translocation of these transcription factors was shown to be dependent on the T4SS, as a Dot/Icm mutant showed reduced nuclear translocation of TFEB and TFE3. This was supported by the observation that blocking bacterial translation with chloramphenicol resulted in the movement of TFEB and TFE3 back into the cytoplasm. Silencing of the TFEB and TFE3 genes, alone or in combination, significantly reduced the size of the CCV, which indicates that these host transcription factors facilitate the expansion and maintenance of the organelle that supports C. burnetii intracellular replication.

Keywords: Coxiella burnetii; SILAC; TFE3; TFEB; autophagy; host-pathogen interactions; lysosome biogenesis.