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Transcription Factor EepR Is Required for Serratia marcescens Host Proinflammatory Response by Corneal Epithelial Cells.

Kimberly M BrothersStephen A K HarveyRobert M Q Shanks
Published in: Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) (2021)
Relatively little is known about how the corneal epithelium responds to vision-threatening bacteria from the Enterobacterales order. This study investigates the impact of Serratia marcescens on corneal epithelial cell host responses. We also investigate the role of a bacterial transcription factor EepR, which is a positive regulator of S. marcescens secretion of cytotoxic proteases and a hemolytic surfactant. We treated transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis of human corneal limbal epithelial cells with wild-type bacterial secretomes. Our results show increased expression of proinflammatory and lipid signaling molecules, while this is greatly altered in eepR mutant-treated corneal cells. Together, these data support the model that the S. marcescens transcription factor EepR is a key regulator of host-pathogen interactions, and is necessary to induce proinflammatory chemokines, cytokines, and lipids.
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