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PA2800 Plays an Important Role in Both Antibiotic Susceptibility and Virulence in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

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Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important human pathogen which causes a variety of infections. P. aeruginosa infections are often difficult to treat due to the pathogen’s resistance to many antibiotics. Previously, it has been reported that a transposon insertion mutant in gene PA2800 of P. aeruginosa PAO1 was more sensitive to tetracycline and ciprofloxacin. Further characterization of this gene, a vacJ homolog, in this study indicated that this gene plays an important role in both antibiotic susceptibility and virulence in P. aeruginosa. The role of PA2800 in antibiotic susceptibility probably signifies its involvement in maintaining outer membrane stability, similar to the role of vacJ in E. coli and Shigella flexneri. However, in contrast to vacJ in other bacteria, PA2800 also affects antibiotic susceptibility by affecting the expression of oprH in P. aeruginosa. As shown by in vivo studies using a Drosophila melanogaster infection model, significantly increased virulence was observed in the PA2800 mutant when compared to the wild type, and such a difference is likely a result of disrupted outer membrane stability and altered expression of znuA in the mutant. The role of PA2800 or vacJ in antibiotic susceptibility and pathogenicity seems to be unique in P. aeruginosa in which it affects both outer membrane stability as well as gene expression.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by PCSIRT (No. IRT1174), NSFC (Grant No. 81171620) and Shaanxi Provincial Government (No. 2011JM 4013 and No. 11JK0611). KD is supported by grants from NSERC and HSCF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Resources Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, Faculty of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710069, China

    Lixin Shen, Xiangli Gao, Lin Chen, Xin Zhao, Bo Li & Kangmin Duan

  2. Department of Histology and Embryology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, China

    Jinhua Wei

  3. Department of Oral Biology, University of Manitoba, 780 Bannatyne Ave, Winnipeg, MB, R3E 0W2, Canada

    Kangmin Duan

  4. Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, 780 Bannatyne Ave, Winnipeg, MB, R3E 0W2, Canada

    Kangmin Duan

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  1. Lixin Shen
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  2. Xiangli Gao
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  3. Jinhua Wei
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  4. Lin Chen
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  5. Xin Zhao
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  6. Bo Li
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  7. Kangmin Duan
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Correspondence to Kangmin Duan.

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Lixin Shen and Xiangli Gao contributed equally to this study.

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Shen, L., Gao, X., Wei, J. et al. PA2800 Plays an Important Role in Both Antibiotic Susceptibility and Virulence in Pseudomonas aeruginosa . Curr Microbiol 65, 601–609 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-012-0196-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-012-0196-2

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