Network-assisted investigation of virulence and antibiotic-resistance systems in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Sci Rep. 2016 May 19:6:26223. doi: 10.1038/srep26223.

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacterium of clinical significance. Although the genome of PAO1, a prototype strain of P. aeruginosa, has been extensively studied, approximately one-third of the functional genome remains unknown. With the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of P. aeruginosa, there is an urgent need to develop novel antibiotic and anti-virulence strategies, which may be facilitated by an approach that explores P. aeruginosa gene function in systems-level models. Here, we present a genome-wide functional network of P. aeruginosa genes, PseudomonasNet, which covers 98% of the coding genome, and a companion web server to generate functional hypotheses using various network-search algorithms. We demonstrate that PseudomonasNet-assisted predictions can effectively identify novel genes involved in virulence and antibiotic resistance. Moreover, an antibiotic-resistance network based on PseudomonasNet reveals that P. aeruginosa has common modular genetic organisations that confer increased or decreased resistance to diverse antibiotics, which accounts for the pervasiveness of cross-resistance across multiple drugs. The same network also suggests that P. aeruginosa has developed mechanism of trade-off in resistance across drugs by altering genetic interactions. Taken together, these results clearly demonstrate the usefulness of a genome-scale functional network to investigate pathogenic systems in P. aeruginosa.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computational Biology
  • Drug Resistance, Bacterial*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Genes, Bacterial
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / drug effects*
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa / pathogenicity*
  • Systems Biology
  • Virulence Factors / analysis*

Substances

  • Virulence Factors