Screening and identification of the heparin-binding associated adhesive proteins of Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Adhesins are critical to the infectious pathogens, thus identification of novel adhesins is very crucial to understanding the pathogen’s infection mechanism. In this study, we demonstrated that heparin can competitively inhibits the adhesion of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (VP) to Hela cells, which indicates heparin in ECM could be the cell receptor of VP. Using heparin-sepharose affinity chromatography, six heparin-binding VP out-membrane proteins (OMPs) are selected. The six corresponding recombinant proteins were expressed and purified. According to the result of function verification test, recombinant protein IMPDH、EF-Tu and OppA are capable of binding to the Hela cells surface. Furthermore, they can inhibit the adhesion of VP to Hela cells significantly. Our research shows that the three OMPs are candidates of VP adhesins.