A bacterial ecto-triphosphate diphosphohydrolase similar to human CD39 is essential for intracellular multiplication of Legionella pneumophila

Abstract

As part of its pathogenesis, Legionella pneumophila persists within human alveolar macrophages in non-acidified organelles that do not mature into phagolysosomes. Two L. pneumophila genes, lpg0971 and lpg1905, are predicted to encode ecto-nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolases (ecto-NTPDases) that share sequence similarity with human CD39/NTPDase1. The predicted products possess five apyrase conserved domains that are typical of eukaryotic ecto-NTPDases. In this study, we found that an lpg1905 mutant was recovered in lower numbers from macrophages, alveolar epithelial cells and the amoeba, Hartmannella vermiformis compared with wild-type L. pneumophila and an lpg0971 mutant. Similar to ..