Genomic and transcriptomic characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa small colony variants derived from a chronic infection model.
Phenotypic change is a hallmark of bacterial adaptation during chronic infection. In the case of chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection in patients with cystic fibrosis, well-characterized phenotypic variants include mucoid and small colony variants (SCVs). It has previously been shown that SCVs can be reproducibly isolated from the murine lung following the establishment of chronic infection with mucoid P. aeruginosa strain NH57388A. Using a combination of single-molecule real-time (PacBio) and Illumina sequencing we identify a large genomic inversion in the SCV through recombination between homologous regions of two rRNA operons and an associated truncation of one of the 16S rRNA genes and suggest this may be the genetic switch for conversion to the SCV phenotype. This phenotypic conversion is associated with large-scale transcriptional changes distributed throughout the genome. This global rewiring of the cellular transcriptomic output results in changes to normally differentially regulated genes that modulate resistance to oxidative stress, central metabolism and virulence. These changes are of clinical relevance because the appearance of SCVs during chronic infection is associated with declining lung function.
['Irvine|Sharon|S|', 'Bunk|Boyke|B|', 'Bayes|Hannah K|HK|', 'Spröer|Cathrin|C|', 'Connolly|James P R|JPR|', 'Six|Anne|A|', 'Evans|Thomas J|TJ|', 'Roe|Andrew J|AJ|', 'Overmann|Jörg|J|', 'Walker|Daniel|D|']
D002908:Chronic Disease D003550:Cystic Fibrosis D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial D006801:Humans D010641:Phenotype D011552:Pseudomonas Infections D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa D012329:RNA, Bacterial D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S D059467:Transcriptome
transcriptomics Pseudomonas aeruginosa small colony variants chronic infection recombination