Host Cell Cytotoxicity and Cytoskeleton Disruption by CerADPr, an ADP-Ribosyltransferase of Bacillus cereus G9241

Bacillus cereus G9241 was isolated from a welder suffering from an anthrax-like inhalation illness. B. cereus G9241 encodes two megaplasmids, pBCXO1 and pBC210, which are analogous to the toxin- and capsule-encoding virulence plasmids of Bacillus anthracis. Protein modeling predicted that the pBC210 LF homologue contained an ADP-ribosyltransferase (ADPr) domain. This putative bacterial ADP-ribosyltransferase domain was denoted CerADPr. Iterative modeling showed that CerADPr possessed several conserved ADP-ribosyltransferase features, including an α-3 helix, an ADP-ribosyltransferase turn-turn loop, and a "Gln-XXX-Glu" motif. CerADPr ADP-ribosylated an ~120 kDa protein in HeLa cell lysates and intact cells. EGFP-CerADPr rounded HeLa cells, elicited cytoskeletal changes, and yielded a cytotoxic phenotype, indicating that CerADPr disrupts cytoskeletal signaling. CerADPr(E431D) did not possess ADP-ribosyltransferase or NAD glycohydrolase activities and did not elicit a phenotype in HeLa cells, implicating Glu431 as a catalytic residue. These experiments identify CerADPr as a cytotoxic ADP-ribosyltransferase that disrupts the host cytoskeleton.