The role of glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase and glutamate dehydrogenase in nitrogen metabolism in Mycobacterium bovis BCG

Date
2013-12-19
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that the regulation of intracellular glutamate levels could play an important role in the ability of pathogenic slow-growing mycobacteria to grow in vivo. However, little is known about the in vitro requirement for the enzymes which catalyse glutamate production and degradation in the slow-growing mycobacteria, namely; glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase (GOGAT) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), respectively. We report that allelic replacement of the Mycobacterium bovis BCG gltBD-operon encoding for the large (gltB) and small (gltD) subunits of GOGAT with a hygromycin resistance cassette resulted in glutamate auxotrophy and that deletion of the GDH encoding-gene (gdh) led to a marked growth deficiency in the presence of L-glutamate as a sole nitrogen source as well as reduction in growth when cultured in an excess of L-asparagine.
Description
CITATION: Viljoen, A. J. et al. 2013. The role of glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase and glutamate dehydrogenase in nitrogen metabolism in Mycobacterium bovis BCG. PLoS ONE, 8(12):e84452, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084452.
The original publication is available at http://journals.plos.org/plosone
Keywords
Glutamate levels, Mycobacterium bovis, BCG vaccines, Intercellular pathogens, Nitrogen metabolism, Dehydrogenases, Aminotransferase
Citation
Viljoen, A. J. et al. 2013. The role of glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase and glutamate dehydrogenase in nitrogen metabolism in Mycobacterium bovis BCG. PLoS ONE, 8(12):e84452, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084452.