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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, December 2003, p. 3682-3687, Vol. 47, No. 12
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.12.3682-3687.2003
Copyright © 2003, American
Society for
Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Improved Green Fluorescent Protein Reporter Gene-Based Microplate Screening for Antituberculosis Compounds by Utilizing an Acetamidase Promoter
Chartchai Changsen,1,2 Scott G. Franzblau,2* and Prasit Palittapongarnpim1,3
Department
of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok
10400,1
National Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Pathumthani
12120, Thailand,3
Institute for Tuberculosis
Research, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at
Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
606122
Received 19 June 2003/
Returned for modification 23 July 2003/
Accepted 3 September 2003
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ABSTRACT
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The
green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene offers many advantages as a
viability reporter for high-throughput antimicrobial drug screening.
However, screening for antituberculosis compounds by using GFP driven
by the heat shock promoter, hsp60, has been of limited utility
due to the low signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore, an alternative
promoter was evaluated for its enhanced fluorescence during
microplate-based culture and its response to 18 established
antimicrobial agents by using a green fluorescent protein microplate
assay (GFPMA). Mycobacterium tuberculosis
strains H37Rv, H37Ra, and Erdman were transformed with pFPCA1, which
contains a red-shifted gfp gene driven by the acetamidase
promoter of M. smegmatis mc2155. The pFPCA1
transformants achieved higher levels of GFP-mediated fluorescence than
those carrying the hsp60 construct, with signal-to-noise
ratios of 20.6 to 27.8 and 3.8 to 4.5, respectively. The MICs of 18
established antimicrobial agents for all strains carrying pFPCA1 in the
GFPMA were within 1 to 2 twofold dilutions of those determined by
either the fluorometric or the visual microplate Alamar Blue assay
(MABA). No significant differences in MICs were observed between
wild-type and pFPCA1 transformants by MABA. The optimized GFPMA is
sufficiently simple, robust, and inexpensive (no reagent costs) to be
used for routine high-throughput screening for antituberculosis
compounds.
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INTRODUCTION
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Tuberculosis continues to be a major global public health problem. In
addition, the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is of concern
(20) and has fostered a
sense of urgency with regard to the need to acquire new drugs. Several
rapid methods such as the microplate Alamar Blue assay (MABA)
(3,
5), the
3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide-based
assay (9), and the
luciferase assay (1,
2,
7,
21) have been established
for the screening of the antimycobacterial activities of compounds.
However, each has one or more drawbacks for high-throughput screening,
including the need to add a dye or a substrate to test the viability of
the bacteria, a step which both increases labor and decreases
safety.
Fluorometric assays based on the Aequorea victoria
gfp gene encoding a green fluorescent protein (GFP) or its mutants
have been used widely in prokaryotes
(8,
10,
11,
24) due to several
properties of gfp that are advantageous for use as a reporter
for bacterial viability and growth, including the low level of
toxicity, continuous production during replication, and easy imaging
and quantification (11,
25). Previous studies
with mycobacteria exclusively used the hsp60 promoter, which
has been fused to gfp in a variety of investigations
(8,
11,
26).
Collins et al.
(6) demonstrated that a
recombinant M. tuberculosis strain carrying pFPV2, an
hsp60::gfp construct, could be
used to assess the MICs of known antimycobacterial compounds. However,
the low level of the fluorescence signal and the relatively high
background autofluorescence of the medium precluded the establishment
of a robust assay that could be used with confidence for
high-throughput screening.
Previous investigators
(6,
13,
17,
18,
23) have identified a
highly inducible promoter sequence which regulates the expression of
the acetamidase gene in M. smegmatis NCTC 8159 and which
demonstrated a high level of gene expression in the presence of amide
inducers such as acetamide.
In this study we demonstrate that an
acetamidase promoter from M. smegmatis strain
mc2155 permits constitutive, high-level gfp
expression in M. tuberculosis strains H37Ra, H37Rv, and
Erdman, resulting in a fluorescence signal significantly higher than
that which is achievable with the hsp60 promoter and
facilitating the determination of MICs of antimicrobial agents without
the addition of reagents
postincubation.
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MATERIALS AND
METHODS
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Bacterial strains.
M. tuberculosis H37Rv (ATCC
27294), M. tuberculosis H37Ra (ATCC 25177), and M.
tuberculosis Erdman (ATCC 35801) were obtained from the American
Type Culture Collection (ATCC; Manassas, Va.). pFPV2 was originally
obtained from R. H. Valdivia
(25).
DNA
manipulation, recombinant DNA methods, and analyses.
The chromosomal DNA of M.
smegmatis mc2155 was purified as described previously
(16). The acetamidase
promoter of M. smegmatis mc2155 was amplified by
PCR with primers AmiP1
(5'-CGTCTAGACGAGTA
CGGCGCCCTGCTGACG-3') and AmiP2
(5'-GAGGATCCTCCGCCGACGAAGAAGTTCAGC-3'),
which annealed to sequences 0.6 and 2.9 kb upstream from the
start codon of the acetamidase gene, respectively. The
amplified product was subcloned into the BamHI and
XbaI sites of plasmid pPFV2 to remove the hsp60
promoter, which was upstream of gfp. Colonies were selected on
the basis of kanamycin resistance and detection of the acetamidase
promoter by using primers AmiP1 and AmiP2. The plasmids were then
purified and digested with BamHI and XbaI. A plasmid
containing the expected fragment of 2.3 kb was selected for
confirmatory sequencing and was designated
pFPCA1.
Electroporation, plasmid
transformation, and clone selection.
Plasmid DNA was isolated
from Escherichia coli DH5
. Strains H37Rv, H37Ra, and
Erdman were cultivated in 7H9 broth supplemented with glycerol and
Tween 80 (7H9GTw), pelleted, and then suspended in 10% sterile
glycerol. Electroporation and selection of transformants were performed
as described previously
(12). GFP-associated
fluorescence was determined with a Victor2 D
multilabel counter fluorometer (Perkin-Elmer Life Sciences Inc.,
Boston, Mass.) in the top-reading mode with excitation at 485 nm and
emission at 535 nm. The selected transformants were cultured in 200 ml
of 7H9GTw with kanamycin. The bacterial suspensions were then washed
once, suspended in 20 ml of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and
passaged through an 8-mm-pore-size filter; and aliquots were stored at
-80°C.
Antimicrobial
agents.
Capreomycin,
chloramphenicol, clindamycin, clofazimine, cycloserine, ethambutol HCl,
ethionamide, fusidic acid, isoniazid, minocycline, ofloxacin,
p-aminosalicylic acid, streptomycin sulfate, and thiacetazone
were purchased from Sigma Chemical Company. Amoxicillin, clavulanate
lithium (2:2; wt/wt), and clarithromycin were purchased from the U.S.
Pharmacopeia. Rifampin was purchased from Fisher Chemical Company.
Ciprofloxacin HCl was purchased from Serologicals
Corporation.
GFP microplate assay
(GFPMA).
Antimycobacterial
susceptibility testing was performed in black, clear-bottom, 96-well
microplates (black view plates; Packard Instrument Company, Meriden,
Conn.). Frozen H37Rv gfp, H37Ra gfp, and Erdman
gfp were thawed, sonicated for 15 s, and cultured at
37°C with shaking in 200 ml of 7H9GTw-kanamycin until the
turbidity reached 50 to 70 Klett units. The cells were pelleted, washed
with PBS, and then suspended in 20 ml of PBS buffer. Aliquots were
stored at -80°C for up to 2 to 3 months. Drug stock
solutions were prepared in either dimethyl sulfoxide or distilled
deionized water and were further diluted in 7H12 broth (7H9 broth
supplemented with 4 µg of catalase per ml, 5 mg of bovine serum
albumin per ml, 5.6 µg of palmitic acid per ml, and 1 mg of
Casitone per ml) supplemented with 0.2% vol/vol glycerol
(7H12G). Frozen inocula were diluted in 7H12G to make final bacterial
densities of 5 x 104 to 5 x 105
CFU/ml. The remaining steps were done as previously reported by Collins
et al.
(6).
MABA.
Cell aliquots and serial dilution of
drugs were prepared as described above for GFPMA. Frozen inocula were
initially diluted in 7H12G to make final bacterial titers of 3.0
x 105 to 5.0 x 105 CFU/ml. The
remaining steps were done as described previously
(5).
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RESULTS
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GFP
expression directed by the acetamidase promoter was continually
detectable during cultivation without addition of acetamide, which is
known to be an inducer of the acetamidase promoter
(4,
13-15,
17,
19,
23). This was observed
not only for H37Ra gfp but also for H37Rv gfp and
Erdman gfp, whereas this construct lost promoter activity in
M. bovis BCG (data not shown).
H37Rv harboring pFPCA1
produced a significantly higher net fluorescence signal (over that of
the background) than the same strain harboring pFPV2 (Fig.
1). In addition, the fluorescence curve derived from the former construct
(pFPCA1) was better correlated to cell growth (numbers of CFU) (Fig.
2), as determined by a better correlation (Pearson product-moment
correlation coefficient; r value) between the fluorescence
reading and cell growth [r values for Erdman(pFPCA1),
H37Ra(pFPCA1), and H37Rv(pFPCA1), 0.9613, 0.9823, and 0.9661,
respectively; r value for H37Rv(pFPV2), 0.9356]. Thus,
the fluorescence reading could be used to monitor more efficiently the
growth of the bacteria in culture. At day 7 the relative fluorescence
units per CFU for M. tuberculosis
Pacetamidase(Pace)::gfp strains
H37Ra, Erdman, and H37Rv were approximately 1.56 x
10-2, 0.47 x 10-2, and
0.37 x 10-2, respectively, whereas that for
M. tuberculosis
Phsp60::gfp strain
H37Rv was approximately 2.58 x
10-4.

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FIG. 1. Ratio
of fluorescence signal to medium background signal during incubation of
M. tuberculosis H37Rv gfp containing either pFPV2
(;
Phsp60::gfp) or pFPCA1
( ; Pace::gfp)
in 7H12G. Data are means ± standard deviations for two
independent
experiments.
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The utilities of these gfp
strains for screening for antituberculosis activity were investigated
by determining MICs in tests with a 96-well format. The kinetic
response to serial twofold dilutions of antimycobacterial agents was
easily detected by fluorescence reading of the microplate cultures for
1 week, an example of which is shown in Fig.
3 for H37Rv gfp and rifampin.
The MICs of 18 antimicrobial
agents for H37Rv (Table
1), Erdman (Table 2), and
H37Ra (Table 3) were
determined by GFPMA and were compared with those
determined by MABA after day 6 to 8 days of incubation. At least two
independent experiments
were conducted with each strain. The MICs of all drugs by GFPMA differed
by
2 twofold dilutions with respect to the MICs obtained by
both the fluorometric and the visual MABA, with most differences being
1 twofold dilution. For all three strains, no significant
differences in MICs determined by the fluorometric or the visual MABA
were found between the corresponding parent and gfp strains of
M.
tuberculosis.
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DISCUSSION
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Previously, GFP
coupled with a widely used hsp60 promoter has been used to
screen drugs for their activities against M. aurum both in
vitro and in macrophages
(22), as well as to
screen germicides for their activities against M. terrae
(27). The hsp60
promoter was also used to regulate GFP expression in M.
tuberculosis H37Ra to determine the MICs of established anti-TB
drugs (6). However,
neither the level of the absolute fluorescence signal nor the
signal-to-noise (background) ratio was sufficiently high to make this
construct a candidate for routine high-throughput screening.
In
this study we replaced the hsp60 promoter in pFPV2
(25) with the 2.3-kb DNA
segment containing the acetamidase promoter from M. smegmatis
mc2155. The resulting recombinant M. tuberculosis
strain produced strong fluorescence regardless of the presence of
acetamide.
The genetic variation within the promoter region
between two different strains of M. smegmatis (NCTC 8159
versus mc2155) might account for the different promoter
activities.
Evidently, the resulting constitutive property of
pFPCA1 is more favorable for a general viability reporter. It gave a
higher relative fluorescence unit per CFU compared with that obtained
with the previous gfp construct (pFPV2) as well as emitted a
fluorescence signal that correlated well with the increase in cell
growth.
We demonstrated here that by using an improved
gfp recombinant M. tuberculosis strain with a high
signal-to-noise ratio, a good correlation between cell growth and
fluorescence activity during incubation can be obtained and that the
MICs of antimycobacterial agents determined by GFPMA are consistent
with those obtained by MABA. The GFPMA described here appears to be
sufficiently robust for use for routine high-throughput screening for
antituberculosis agents.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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We thank Chanpen Wiwat,
Saradee Warit, Sanghyun Cho, Fangqiu Zhang, Yuehong Wang, Kamolchanok
Rakseree, Arunee Thong-On, and Nantawan Thong-On for technical
assistance.
This study was supported by the Thailand Research
Fund, the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology,
and contract NIH/NIAID/DAIDS-01-13 from the National Institutes of
Health. Chartchai Changsen was supported by the Mahidol University
Medical Scholar
Program.
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FOOTNOTES
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* Corresponding
author. Mailing address: Institute for Tuberculosis Research, MC 964,
Rm. 412, 833 S. Wood St., College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois
at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612-7231. Phone: (312) 355-1715. Fax: (312)
355-2693. E-mail:
sgf{at}uic.edu. 
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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, December 2003, p. 3682-3687, Vol. 47, No. 12
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.12.3682-3687.2003
Copyright © 2003, American
Society for
Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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