Lactate promotes the biofilm-to-invasive-planktonic transition in
Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhimurium via the
de novo
purine pathway
Authors: Albicoro Francisco J. , Bessho Shingo , Grando Kaitlyn , Olubajo Sophia , Tam Vincent , Tükel Çagla 
Published: August 2024

Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhimurium (
S
. Typhimurium) infection triggers an inflammatory response that changes the concentration of metabolites in the gut impacting the luminal environment. Some of these environmental adjustments are conducive to
S
. Typhimurium growth, such as the increased concentrations of nitrate and tetrathionate or the reduced levels of Clostridia-produced butyrate. We recently demonstrated that
S
. Typhimurium can form biofilms within the host environment and respond to nitrate as a signaling molecule, enabling it to transition between sessile and planktonic states. To investigate whether
S
. Typhimurium utilizes additional metabolites to regulate its behavior, our study delved into the impact of inflammatory metabolites on biofilm formation. The results revealed that lactate, the most prevalent metabolite in the inflammatory environment, impedes biofilm development by reducing intracellular c-di-GMP levels, suppressing the expression of curli and cellulose, and increasing the expression of flagellar genes. A transcriptomic analysis determined that the expression of the
de novo
purine pathway increases during high lactate conditions, and a transposon mutagenesis genetic screen identified that PurA and PurG, in particular, play a significant role in the inhibition of curli expression and biofilm formation. Lactate also increases the transcription of the type III secretion system genes involved in tissue invasion. Finally, we show that the pyruvate-modulated two-component system BtsSR is activated in the presence of high lactate, which suggests that lactate-derived pyruvate activates BtsSR system after being exported from the cytosol. All these findings propose that lactate is an important inflammatory metabolite used by
S
. Typhimurium to transition from a biofilm to a motile state and fine-tune its virulence.

IMPORTANCE

When colonizing the gut,
Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhimurium (
S
. Typhimurium) adopts a dynamic lifestyle that alternates between a virulent planktonic state and a multicellular biofilm state. The coexistence of biofilm formers and planktonic
S
. Typhimurium in the gut suggests the presence of regulatory mechanisms that control planktonic-to-sessile transition. The signals triggering the transition of
S
. Typhimurium between these two lifestyles are not fully explored. In this work, we demonstrated that in the presence of lactate, the most dominant host-derived metabolite in the inflamed gut, there is a reduction of c-di-GMP in
S
. Typhimurium, which subsequently inhibits biofilm formation and induces the expression of its invasion machinery, motility genes, and
de novo
purine metabolic pathway genes. Furthermore, high levels of lactate activate the BtsSR two-component system. Collectively, this work presents new insights toward the comprehension of host metabolism and gut microenvironment roles in the regulation of
S
. Typhimurium biology during infection.