English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Pathogenic spirochetes cause clinically relevant diseases in humans and animals, such as Lyme disease and leptospirosis. The causative agent of Lyme disease,  Borrelia burgdorferi , and the causative agent of leptospirosis,  Leptospria interrogans , encounter reactive oxygen species (ROS) during their enzootic cycles. This report demonstrated that physiologically relevant concentrations of pyruvate, a potent H 2 O 2  scavenger, and provided passive protection to  B. burgdorferi  and  L. interrogans  against H 2 O 2 . When extracellular pyruvate was absent, both spirochetes were sensitive to a low dose of H 2 O 2  (≈0.6 µM per h) generated by glucose oxidase (GOX). Despite encoding a functional catalase,  L .  interrogans  was more sensitive than  B. burgdorferi  to H 2 O 2  generated by GOX, which may be due to the inherent resistance of  B. burgdorferi  because of the virtual absence of intracellular iron. In  B. burgdorferi , the nucleotide excision repair (NER) and the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathways were important for survival during H 2 O 2  challenge since deletion of the  uvrB  or the  mutS  genes enhanced its sensitivity to H 2 O 2  killing; however, the presence of pyruvate fully protected Δ uvrB  and Δ mutS  from H 2 O 2  killing further demonstrating the importance of pyruvate in protection. These findings demonstrated that pyruvate, in addition to its classical role in central carbon metabolism, serves as an important H 2 O 2  scavenger for pathogenic spirochetes. Furthermore, pyruvate reduced ROS generated by human neutrophils in response to the Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) agonist zymosan. In addition, pyruvate reduced neutrophil-derived ROS in response to  B. burgdorferi , which also activates host expression through TLR2 signaling. Thus, pathogenic spirochetes may exploit the metabolite pyruvate, present in blood and tissues, to survive H 2 O 2  generated by the host antibacterial response generated during infection.

Pyruvate Protects Pathogenic Spirochetes from H2O2 Killing