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Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii

Acinetobacter baumannii is a pathogen of increasing clinical importance worldwide, especially given its ability to readily acquire resistance determinants. Motile strains of this bacterium can move by either or both of two types of motility: (i) twitching, driven by type IV pili, and (ii) surface-as...

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Autores principales: Corral, Jordi, Pérez-Varela, María, Sánchez-Osuna, Miquel, Cortés, Pilar, Barbé, Jordi, Aranda, Jesús
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8451467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34515614
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21505594.2021.1950268
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author Corral, Jordi
Pérez-Varela, María
Sánchez-Osuna, Miquel
Cortés, Pilar
Barbé, Jordi
Aranda, Jesús
author_facet Corral, Jordi
Pérez-Varela, María
Sánchez-Osuna, Miquel
Cortés, Pilar
Barbé, Jordi
Aranda, Jesús
author_sort Corral, Jordi
collection PubMed
description Acinetobacter baumannii is a pathogen of increasing clinical importance worldwide, especially given its ability to readily acquire resistance determinants. Motile strains of this bacterium can move by either or both of two types of motility: (i) twitching, driven by type IV pili, and (ii) surface-associated motility, an appendage-independent form of movement. A. baumannii strain MAR002 possesses both twitching and surface-associated motility. In this study, we isolated spontaneous rifampin-resistant mutants of strain MAR002 in which point mutations in the rpoB gene were identified that resulted in an altered motility pattern. Transcriptomic analysis of mutants lacking twitching, surface-associated motility, or both led to the identification of deregulated genes within each motility phenotype, based on their level of expression and their biological function. Investigations of the corresponding knockout mutants revealed several genes involved in the motility of A. baumannii strain MAR002, including two involved in twitching (encoding a minor pilin subunit and an RND [resistance nodulation division] component), one in surface-associated motility (encoding an amino acid permease), and eight in both (encoding RND and ABC components, the energy transducer TonB, the porin OprD, the T6SS component TagF, an IclR transcriptional regulator, a PQQ-dependent sugar dehydrogenase, and a putative pectate lyase). Virulence assays showed the reduced pathogenicity of mutants with impairments in both types of motility or in surface-associated motility alone. By contrast, the virulence of twitching-affected mutants was not affected. These results shed light on the key role of surface-associated motility and the limited role of twitching in the pathogenicity of A. baumannii.
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spelling pubmed-84514672021-09-21 Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii Corral, Jordi Pérez-Varela, María Sánchez-Osuna, Miquel Cortés, Pilar Barbé, Jordi Aranda, Jesús Virulence Research Paper Acinetobacter baumannii is a pathogen of increasing clinical importance worldwide, especially given its ability to readily acquire resistance determinants. Motile strains of this bacterium can move by either or both of two types of motility: (i) twitching, driven by type IV pili, and (ii) surface-associated motility, an appendage-independent form of movement. A. baumannii strain MAR002 possesses both twitching and surface-associated motility. In this study, we isolated spontaneous rifampin-resistant mutants of strain MAR002 in which point mutations in the rpoB gene were identified that resulted in an altered motility pattern. Transcriptomic analysis of mutants lacking twitching, surface-associated motility, or both led to the identification of deregulated genes within each motility phenotype, based on their level of expression and their biological function. Investigations of the corresponding knockout mutants revealed several genes involved in the motility of A. baumannii strain MAR002, including two involved in twitching (encoding a minor pilin subunit and an RND [resistance nodulation division] component), one in surface-associated motility (encoding an amino acid permease), and eight in both (encoding RND and ABC components, the energy transducer TonB, the porin OprD, the T6SS component TagF, an IclR transcriptional regulator, a PQQ-dependent sugar dehydrogenase, and a putative pectate lyase). Virulence assays showed the reduced pathogenicity of mutants with impairments in both types of motility or in surface-associated motility alone. By contrast, the virulence of twitching-affected mutants was not affected. These results shed light on the key role of surface-associated motility and the limited role of twitching in the pathogenicity of A. baumannii. Taylor & Francis 2021-09-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8451467/ /pubmed/34515614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21505594.2021.1950268 Text en © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Paper
Corral, Jordi
Pérez-Varela, María
Sánchez-Osuna, Miquel
Cortés, Pilar
Barbé, Jordi
Aranda, Jesús
Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title_full Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title_fullStr Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title_full_unstemmed Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title_short Importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii
title_sort importance of twitching and surface-associated motility in the virulence of acinetobacter baumannii
topic Research Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8451467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34515614
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21505594.2021.1950268
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