Bacterial polyphosphates interfere with the innate host defense to infection

Polyphosphates are linear polymers and ubiquitous metabolites. Bacterial polyphosphates are long chains of hundreds of phosphate units. Here, we report that mouse survival of peritoneal Escherichia coli sepsis is compromised by long-chain polyphosphates, and improves with bacterial polyphosphatekinase deficiency or neutralization using recombinant exopolyphosphatase. Polyphosphate activities are chain-length dependent, impair pathogen clearance, antagonize phagocyte recruitment, diminish phagocytosis and decrease production of iNOS and cytokines. Macrophages bind and internalize polyphosphates, in which their effects are independent of P2Y1 and RAGE receptors. The M1 polarization driven by E. coli derived LPS is misdirected by polyphosphates in favor of an M2 resembling phenotype. Long-chain polyphosphates modulate the expression of more than 1800 LPS/TLR4-regulated genes in macrophages. This interference includes suppression of hundreds of type I interferon-regulated genes due to lower interferon production and responsiveness, blunted STAT1 phosphorylation and reduced MHCII expression. In conclusion, prokaryotic polyphosphates disturb multiple macrophage functions for evading host immunity. Production of polyphosphate polymers is a ubiquitous trait of bacteria. Here, the authors investigate the role of bacterial long polyphosphates in host immune suppression and show that long polyphosphates produced by E. coli inhibit LPS-mediated inflammation and bacterial clearance in mice.