Title The role of Acinetobacter baumannii response regulator BfmR in pellicle formation and competitiveness via contact-dependent inhibition system /
Authors Krasauskas, Renatas ; Skerniškytė, Jūratė ; Armalytė, Julija ; Sužiedėlienė, Edita
DOI 10.1186/s12866-019-1621-5
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Is Part of BMC Microbiology.. London : BioMed Central. 2019, vol. 19, no. 1, art. no. 241, p. [1-12].. ISSN 1471-2180
Keywords [eng] Acinetobacter ; BfmR ; pellicle ; T6SS ; CDI
Abstract [eng] Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the most important opportunistic pathogens responsible for hospital acquired infections. It displays multi-drug resistance profile and has the ability to colonize surfaces and persist under harsh conditions. A. baumannii two-component signal transduction system BfmRS, consisting of response regulator BfmR and sensor kinase BfmS, has been implicated in the control of various virulence-related traits and has been suggested to act as a global modulator of A. baumannii physiology. Results: Here, we assessed the role of BfmR regulator in pellicle formation and bacterial competition, features important for the establishment of A. baumannii in clinical environment. We show that BfmR is required for the pellicle formation of A. baumannii, as ΔbfmRS mutant lacked this phenotype. The loss of bfmRS also greatly reduced the secretion of A. baumannii Hcp protein, which is a component of T6SS secretion system. However, the T6SS-mediated killing phenotype was not impaired in the ΔbfmRS mutant. On the contrary, the same mutation resulted in the transcriptional activation of contact-dependent inhibition (CDI) system, which A. baumannii used to inhibit the growth of another clinical A. baumannii strain and a closely related species Acinetobacter baylyi. Conclusions: The obtained results indicate that BfmR is not only required for the pellicle phenotype induction in A. baumannii, but also, due to the down-regulation of a CDI system, could allow the incorporation of other A. baumannii strains or related species, possibly increasing the likelihood of the pathogens’ survival.
Published London : BioMed Central
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2019