Legionella pneumophila infection rewires the Acanthamoeba castellanii transcriptome, highlighting a class of sirtuin genes

Through RNA-sequencing we compared A. castellanii infected with wild type L. pneumophila to A. castellanii infected with an isogenic dotA mutant strain, which is unable to replicate intracellularly. We identified clear morphological and transcriptional changes in A. castellanii over the course of infection. Genes differentially expressed during infection fell into fundamental biological processes, such as small GTPase signalling, cytoskeleton dynamics, metabolism and cell proliferation. Members of the Sirtuin family of class III histone deacetylases were upregulated by A. castellanii throughout wild type L. pneumophila infection. sir6f expression was important for A. castellanii proliferation during infection and L. pneumophila replication RNA-sequencing analysis on A. castellanii trophozoites left uninfected or infected with wild type L. pneumophila or the isogenic DdotA mutant for 3 h, 8 h (early infection), 16 h (mid infection) or 24 h (late infection).