Shigella Manipulates Host Immune Responses by Delivering Effector Proteins with Specific Roles

Inflammasomes are large cytoplasmic complexes that sense microbial infections/danger molecules and induce caspase-1 activation-dependent cytokine production and macrophage inflammatory death. The inflammasome assembled by the NOD-like receptor (NLR) protein NLRC4 responds to bacterial flagellin and a conserved type III secretion system (TTSS) rod component. How the NLRC4 inflammasome detects the two bacterial products and the molecular mechanism of NLRC4 inflammasome activation are not understood. Here we show that NAIP5, a BIR-domain NLR protein required for Legionella pneumophila replication in mouse macrophages, is a universal component of the flagellin-NLRC4 pathway. NAIP5 directly and specifically interacted with flagellin, which determined the inflammasome-stimulation activities of different bacterial flagellins. NAIP5 engagement by flagellin promoted a physical NAIP5-NLRC4 association, rendering full reconstitution of a flagellin-responsive NLRC4 inflammasome in non-macrophage cells. The related NAIP2 functioned analogously to NAIP5, serving as a specific inflammasome receptor for TTSS rod proteins such as Salmonella PrgJ and Burkholderia BsaK. Genetic analysis of Chromobacterium violaceum infection revealed that the TTSS needle protein CprI can stimulate NLRC4 inflammasome activation in human macrophages. Similarly, CprI is specifically recognized by human NAIP, the sole NAIP family member in human. The finding that NAIP proteins are inflammasome receptors for bacterial flagellin and TTSS apparatus components further predicts that the remaining NAIP family members may recognize other unidentified microbial products to activate NLRC4 inflammasome-mediated innate immunity. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

The Gram-negative bacterial pathogen Shigella flexneri causes dysentery by invading the human colonic mucosa. Bacteria are phagocytosed by enterocytes, escape from the phagosome into the cytoplasm and spread to adjacent cells. After crossing the epithelium, Shigella reaches the lamina propria of intestinal villi, the first line of defence. This tissue is densely populated with phagocytes that are killed in great numbers, resulting in abscesses. The genes required for cell invasion and macrophage killing are located on a 220-kilobase plasmid. We report here on the mechanism of cytotoxicity used by S. flexneri to kill macrophages. Each of four different strains was tested for its capacity to induce cell death. An invasive strain induced programmed cell death (apoptosis), whereas its non-invasive, plasmidcured isogenic strain was not toxic; neither was a mutant in ipa B (ref. 10) (invasion protein antigen), a gene necessary for entry. A non-invasive strain expressing the haemolysin operon of Escherichia coli induced accidental cell death (necrosis), demonstrating that other bacterial cytotoxic mechanisms do not lead to apoptosis. This is the first evidence that an invasive bacterial pathogen can induce suicide in its host cells.

Inflammasomes are a family of cytosolic multiprotein complexes that initiate innate immune responses to pathogenic microbes by activating the CASPASE1 (CASP1) protease 1,2 . Although genetic data support a critical role for inflammasomes in immune defense and inflammatory diseases 3 , the molecular basis by which individual inflammasomes respond to specific stimuli remains poorly understood. The inflammasome that contains the NLRC4 (NLR family, CARD domain containing C4) protein was previously shown to be activated in response to two distinct bacterial proteins, flagellin 4,5 and PrgJ 6 , a conserved component of pathogen-associated type III secretion systems. However, direct binding between NLRC4 and flagellin or PrgJ has never been demonstrated. A homolog of NLRC4, NAIP5 (NLR family, Apoptosis Inhibitory Protein 5), has been implicated in activation of NLRC4 7–11 , but is widely assumed to play only an auxiliary role 1,2 , since NAIP5 is often dispensable for NLRC4 activation 7,8 . However, Naip5 is a member of a small multigene family 12 , raising the possibility of redundancy and functional specialization among Naip genes. Indeed, we show here that different NAIP paralogs dictate the specificity of the NLRC4 inflammasome for distinct bacterial ligands. In particular, we found that activation of endogenous NLRC4 by bacterial PrgJ requires NAIP2, a previously uncharacterized member of the NAIP gene family, whereas NAIP5 and NAIP6 activate NLRC4 specifically in response to bacterial flagellin. We dissected the biochemical mechanism underlying the requirement for NAIP proteins by use of a reconstituted NLRC4 inflammasome system. We found that NAIP proteins control ligand-dependent oligomerization of NLRC4 and that NAIP2/NLRC4 physically associates with PrgJ but not flagellin, whereas NAIP5/NLRC4 associates with flagellin but not PrgJ. Taken together, our results identify NAIPs as immune sensor proteins and provide biochemical evidence for a simple receptor-ligand model for activation of the NAIP/NLRC4 inflammasomes.