BioProject

The bacterium Serratia marcescens is a common contaminant of contact lens cases and lenses. Serratamolide is one of the secreted hemolytic/cytotoxic factors which contribute to the virulence of this opportunistic pathogen (PMID 22615766). A newly identified transcription factor (eepR) is essential for serratamolide production (PMID 25897029). In the present study, we used immortalized human corneal-limbal epithelial (HCLE) cells (PMID 12766048) as targets for the secreted products of either wild-type (WT) S. marcescens or an isogenic eepR mutant. Microarray data showed that at sub - cytotoxic levels, the secretome of WT bacteria stimulated a > 2-fold response in 712 unique characterized genes. Analysis showed that immune/inflammatory response pathways are significantly enriched in these genes. The scaled response of eepR, ((eepR - control)/(WT – control)), was < 0.5 for 418 of these 712 genes (59%). Pathway analysis of these 2-fold attenuated genes confirmed that they too represented immune/inflammatory responses. These data demonstrate that the serratamolide-deficient eepR mutant evokes a much weaker immune/inflammatory response from a clinically relevant cellular target than does the wild-type bacterium. Overall design: A common batch of HCLE cells was used. Independent preparations of Serratia marcescens secretomes were made for each experiment.