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Lookup NU author(s): Dr James ConnollyORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2019 The Authors. 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.
Author(s): Irvine S, Bunk B, Bayes HK, Sproer C, Connolly JPR, Six A, Evans TJ, Roe AJ, Overmann J, Walker D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Microbial Genomics
Year: 2019
Volume: 5
Issue: 4
Pages: 1-11
Online publication date: 28/03/2019
Acceptance date: 10/03/2019
Date deposited: 20/09/2019
ISSN (electronic): 2057-5858
Publisher: Microbiology Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000262
DOI: 10.1099/mgen.0.000262
PubMed id: 30920365
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