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Phenotypic and Genome-Wide Analysis of an Antibiotic-Resistant Small Colony Variant of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

ABSTRACT: Background Small colony variants (SCVs) are slow-growing bacteria, which often show increased resistance to antibiotics and cause latent or recurrent infections. It is therefore important to understand the mechanisms at the basis of this phenotypic switch. Methodology/Principal findings One SCV (termed PAO-SCV) was isolated, showing high resistance to gentamicin and to the cephalosporine cefotaxime. PAO-SCV was prone to reversion as evidenced by emergence of large colonies with a frequency of 10-5 on media without antibiotics while it was stably maintained in presence of gentamicin. PAO-SCV showed a delayed growth, defective motility, and strongly reduced levels of the quorum sensing Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS). Whole genome expression analysis further suggested a multi-layered antibiotic resistance mechanism, including simultaneous over-expression of two drug efflux pumps (MexAB-OprM, MexXY-OprM), the LPS modification operon arnBCADTEF, and the PhoP-PhoQ two-component system. Conversely, the genes for the synthesis of PQS were strongly down-regulated in PAOSCV. Finally, genomic analysis revealed the presence of mutations in phoP and phoQ genes as well as in the mexZ gene encoding a repressor of the mexXY and mexABoprM genes. Only one mutation occurred only in REV, at nucleotide 1020 of the tufA gene, a paralog of tufB, both encoding the elongation factor Tu, causing a change of the rarely used aspartic acid codon GAU to the more common GAC, possibly causing an increase of tufA mRNA translation. High expression of phoP and phoQ was confirmed for the SCV variant while the revertant showed expression levels reduced to wild-type levels. Conclusions By combining data coming from phenotypic, gene expression and proteome analysis, we could demonstrate that resistance to aminoglycosides in one SCV mutant is multifactorial including overexpression of efflux mechanisms, LPS modification and is accompanied by a drastic down-regulation of the Pseudomonas quinolone signal quorum sensing system. We used microarrays to study changes in gene expression during early and late stationary phase of SCV and WT strains.

ORGANISM(S): Pseudomonas aeruginosa

PROVIDER: GSE34141 | GEO | 2011/12/06

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA150071

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Background Small colony variants (SCVs) are slow-growing bacteria, which often show increased resistance to antibiotics and cause latent or recurrent infections. It is therefore important to understand the mechanisms at the basis of this phenotypic switch. Methodology/Principal findings One SCV (termed PAO-SCV) was isolated, showing high resistance to gentamicin and to the cephalosporine cefotaxime. PAO-SCV was prone to reversion as evidenced by emergence of large colonies with a frequency of 10-5 on media without antibiotics while it was stably maintained in presence of gentamicin. PAO-SCV showed a delayed growth, defective motility, and strongly reduced levels of the quorum sensing Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS). Whole genome expression analysis further suggested a multi-layered antibiotic resistance mechanism, including simultaneous over-expression of two drug efflux pumps (MexAB-OprM, MexXY-OprM), the LPS modification operon arnBCADTEF, and the PhoP-PhoQ two-component system. Conversely, the genes for the synthesis of PQS were strongly down-regulated in PAOSCV. Finally, genomic analysis revealed the presence of mutations in phoP and phoQ genes as well as in the mexZ gene encoding a repressor of the mexXY and mexABoprM genes. Only one mutation occurred only in REV, at nucleotide 1020 of the tufA gene, a paralog of tufB, both encoding the elongation factor Tu, causing a change of the rarely used aspartic acid codon GAU to the more common GAC, possibly causing an increase of tufA mRNA translation. High expression of phoP and phoQ was confirmed for the SCV variant while the revertant showed expression levels reduced to wild-type levels. Conclusions By combining data coming from phenotypic, gene expression and proteome analysis, we could demonstrate that resistance to aminoglycosides in one SCV mutant is multifactorial including overexpression of efflux mechanisms, LPS modification and is accompanied by a drastic down-regulation of the Pseudomonas quinolone signal quorum sensing system. We used microarrays to study changes in gene expression during early and late stationary phase of SCV and WT strains. SCV and WT cultures were grown in triplicate until early (24h) and late (48h) stationary phase. RNA was extracted, labelled and hybridised on Affymetrix P. aeruginosa expression microarrays.

Project description:The specificity of the kinase-regulator interaction is driven by a limited set of interfacial residues in each protein that strongly. To identify combinations of these interface residues that are functional and potentially insulated from existing two-component signaling pathways in E. coli, we constructed a dual library of mutants in which the key, coevolving interface residues of a canonical two-component system, PhoQ and PhoP, were randomized. We used NNS codons to randomize six residues in PhoQ and five residues in PhoP, all of which lie at the interface formed by the two proteins in complex and that are critical to determining partner specificity in all two-component signaling pathways. To identify functional combinations of residues, we first grew the library of PhoQ-PhoP variants overnight in medium with low Mg2+, which activates PhoQ. Because cells must phosphorylate PhoP to grow when extracellular Mg2+ is limiting, this step enriches for functional PhoQ-PhoP variants. Variants that survived selection in limiting Mg2+ were then subjected to Sort-Seq, using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and deep sequencing to quantify the signal responsiveness of variants in the library. To gauge the phosphorylation of PhoP in vivo, we used a fluorescent transcriptional reporter, PmgrB-yfp. In the presence of low extracellular Mg2+, functional PhoQ promotes the phosphorylation of PhoP and the production of YFP, whereas in the presence of high concentrations of Mg2+, PhoQ drives the dephosphorylation of PhoP, limiting the accumulation of YFP). The library was grown in each condition for 6 hours before sorting and sequencing. To identify variants that are signal responsive and drive YFP production specifically in low Mg2+, we sorted cells from each condition into 8 separate bins and deep sequenced the randomized regions of variants collected in each bin. We then calculated the frequency of each variant in each bin to yield the distributions of individual variants in low and high Mg2+, which were fit to Gaussians. From these fits, we assessed the mean level of YFP in each condition and the fold-induction, or signal responsiveness, of each variant detected in the library. The 11 codons / amino acids listed in this dataset refer to codons 12, 14, 15, 18, and 19 in PhoP and codons 284, 288, 289, 292, 302, and 303 in PhoQ, in that order.

Project description:Virulence factor production and the development of biofilms in Pseudomonas aeruginosa have been shown to be regulated by two hierarchically organised quorum sensing (QS) systems via small acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL) signal molecules. Recently, a third bacterial signal molecule, the Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS), has been identified, which positively regulates a subset of genes dependent on the QS systems. To further dissect the various independent regulation levels for many QS induced genes and to evaluate the impact of PQS on the QS circuitry, we performed a transcriptome analysis of PAO1 cultures supplemented with PQS. The global transcriptional profile in response to PQS revealed a marked up-regulation of genes belonging to the tightly interdependent functional groups of iron acquisition and oxidative stress response. Remarkably, not only most of the differentially regulated genes but also the induction of a lacZ transcriptional fusion of rhlR could be traced back to a iron chelating effect of PQS. Nevertheless, although iron deficiency per se induced rhlR, there seems to be PQS specific effects that are independent of the PQS effect on P. aeruginosa iron homeostasis Experiment Overall Design: For RNA extraction bacteria were harvested at early logarithmic, late logarithmic and stationary phase of growth. Three independent cultures of PQS-treated and untreated PAO1 each were pooled and the RNA was immediately stabilized with RNAprotect Bacteria Reagent (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). RNA was isolated using the RNeasy kit (Qiagen), treated with DNaseI (Roche) for 30 min at 37M-BM-0C and re-purified with the RNeasy spin column. The subsequent steps of cDNA generation and Biotin-ddUTP terminal labelling were performed as described in the manufacturerM-bM-^@M-^Ys instructions for the P. aeruginosa GeneChipM-CM-^R. Fragmented and labelled cDNA was hybridised to a GeneChip at 50 M-BM-0C for 16 h. The washing steps, staining and scanning of the microarrays were performed using the Affymetrix GeneChip system. Data analysis was performed using the Affymetrix Microarray Suite Software 5.0 with Affymetrix default parameters. As expression analysis was performed in duplicate, a total of two GeneChips per culture condition was scanned at 570 nm, 3 M-BM-5m resolution in an Affymetrix GeneChip scanner. The signals were multiplied by a scaling factor to make the average signal for all the arrays equivalent. The data were imported into a Microsoft Access database capable of searching for genes, which were found in all four pairings defined by the Affymetrix Microarray Suite Software as having significant changes in their signal intensities. Data were combined with the latest annotation from the website of the P. aeruginosa PAO1 sequence and the community annotation project provided at www.pseudomonas.com.

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Phenotypic and Genome-Wide Analysis of an Antibiotic-Resistant Small Colony Variant of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

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