Project description:Tigecycline, a protein translation inhibitor, is a treatment of last resort for infections caused by the opportunistic multidrug resistant human pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. However, strains resistant to tigecycline were reported not long after its clinical introduction. Translation inhibitor antibiotics perturb ribosome function and induce the reduction of (p)ppGpp, an alarmone involved in the stringent response that negatively modulates ribosome production. Through RNA sequencing, this study revealed a significant reduction in the transcription of genes in citric acid cycle and cell respiration, suggesting tigecycline inhibits or slows down bacterial growth. Our results indicated that the drug-induced reduction of (p)ppGpp level promoted the production but diminished the degradation of ribosomes, which mitigates the translational inhibition effect by tigecycline. The reduction of (p)ppGpp also led to a decrease of transcription coupled nucleotide excision repair which likely increases the chances of development of tigecycline resistant mutants. Increased expression of genes linked to horizontal gene transfer were also observed. The most upregulated gene, rtcB, involving in RNA repair, is either a direct tigecycline stress response or is in response to the transcription de-repression of a toxin-antitoxin system. The most down-regulated genes encode two b-lactamases, which is a possible by-product of tigecycline-induced reduction in transcription of genes associated with peptidoglycan biogenesis. This transcriptomics study provides a global genetic view of why A. baumannii is able to rapidly develop tigecycline resistance.
Project description:The antibiotic resistance of A. baumannii has been increasing in recent years. There are still many questions unclear concerning the mechanism of tigecycline resistance in A. baumannii. iTRAQ based proteomic analysis were used to reveal the mechanism of tigecycline resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii.
Project description:The mechanism of tigecycline resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii under sub-minimal inhibitory concentration tigecycline by comparative protemics
Project description:The bacterial pathogen, Acinetobacter baumannii, is a leading cause of drug-resistant infections. Here, we investigated the potential of developing nanobodies that specifically recognize A. baumannii over other Gram-negative bacteria. Through generation and panning of a synthetic nanobody library, we identified several potential lead candidates. We demonstrate how incorporation of next generation sequencing analysis can aid in selection of lead candidates for further characterization. Using monoclonal phage display, we validated the binding of several lead nanobodies to A. baumannii. Subsequent purification and biochemical characterization revealed one particularly robust nanobody that broadly and specifically bound A. baumannii compared to other common drug resistant pathogens. These findings support the potentially for nanobodies to selectively target A. baumannii and the identification of lead candidates for possible future diagnostic and therapeutic development.
Project description:Using Nanopore sequencing, our study has revealed a close correlation between genomic methylation levels and antibiotic resistance rates in Acinetobacter Baumannii. Specifically, the combined genome-wide DNA methylome and transcriptome analysis revealed the first epigenetic-based antibiotic-resistance mechanism in A. baumannii. Our findings suggest that the precise location of methylation sites along the chromosome could provide new diagnostic markers and drug targets to improve the management of multidrug-resistant A. baumannii infections.
Project description:Acinetobacter baumannii AB042, a triclosan-resistant mutant, was examined for modulated gene expression using whole genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and proteomics in order to understand the mechanism of triclosan-resistance as well as its impact on A. Baumannii.
Project description:We analyzed the extracellular proteome of colistin-resistant Korean Acinetobacter baumannii (KAB) strains to identify proteome profiles that can be used to characterize extensively drug-resistant KAB strains.
Project description:We have shown recently that in the human pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii, light is able to modulate key aspects contributing to its success as a pathogen such as motility, biofilm formation and virulence in a way that depends on the BLUF photoreceptor BlsA at 24ºC. In addition, light can induce reduction in susceptibility to certain antibiotics such as minocycline and tigecycline in a photoreceptor-independent manner, directly inducing expression of resistance genes. In this work, we performed RNAseq studies to identify new traits modulated by light in this pathogen in A. baumannii strain ATCC 19606. We have found 226 differentially expressed genes between light and dark, which comprise not only important determinants related to pathogenicity/resistance, but also to the bacteria´s survival in the environment.
