Abstract

Moraxella catarrhalis is subjected to oxidative stress from both internal and environmental sources. A previous study (C. D. Pericone, K. Overweg, P. W. Hermans, and J. N. Weiser, Infect. Immun. 68:3990–3997, 2000) indicated that a wild-type strain of M. catarrhalis was very resistant to killing by exogenous hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The gene encoding OxyR, a LysR family transcriptional regulator, was identified and inactivated in M. catarrhalis strain O35E, resulting in an increase in sensitivity to killing by H2O2 in disk diffusion assays and a concomitant aerobic serial dilution effect. Genes encoding a predicted catalase (KatA) and an alkyl hydroperoxidase (AhpCF) showed dose-dependent upregulation in wild-type cells exposed to H2O2. DNA microarray and real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) analyses identified M. catarrhalis genes whose expression was affected by oxidative stress in an OxyR-dependent manner. Testing of M. catarrha-lis O35E katA and ahpC mutants for their abilities to scavenge exogenous H2O2 showed that the KatA catalase was responsible for most of this activity in the wild-type parent strain. The introduction of the same mutations into M. catarrhalis strain ETSU-4 showed that the growth of a ETSU-4 katA mutant was markedly inhibited by the addition of 50 mM H2O2 but that this mutant could still form a biofilm equivalent to that produced by its wild-type parent strain. Moraxella catarrhalis is an aerobic, Gram-negative coccoba-