Summary Alginate overproduction by P. aeruginosa strains, also known as mucoidy, is associated with chronic lung infections in cystic fibrosis (CF). It is not clear how alginate induction occurs in the wild type (wt) mucA strains. When grown on Pseudomonas isolation agar (PIA), P. aeruginosa strains PAO1 and PA14 are nonmucoid producing minimal amounts of alginate. Here we report the addition of ammonium metavanadate (AMV), a phosphatase inhibitor, to PIA (PIA-AMV) induced mucoidy in both these laboratory strains and early lung colonizing nonmucoid isolates with a wt mucA. This phenotypic switch was reversible depending on the availability of vanadate salts and triclosan, a component of PIA. Alginate induction in PAO1 on PIA-AMV was correlated with increased proteolytic degradation of MucA, and required envelope proteases AlgW or MucP, and a two-component phosphate regulator, PhoP. Other changes included the addition of palmitate to lipid A, a phenotype also observed in chronic CF isolates. Proteomic analysis revealed the upregulation of stress chaperones, which was confirmed by increased expression of the chaperone/protease MucD. Altogether, these findings suggest a model of alginate induction and the PIA-AMV medium may be suitable for examining early lung colonization phenotypes in CF before the selection of the mucA mutants.

SummaryAlginate is an important polysaccharide that is commonly used as a gelling agent in foods, cosmetics and healthcare products. Currently, all alginate used commercially is extracted from brown seaweed. However, with environmental changes such as increasing ocean temperature and the increasing number of biotechnological uses of alginates with specific properties, there is an emerging need for more reliable and customizable sources of alginate. An alternative to seaweed for alginate production is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common Gram‐negative bacterium that can form alginate‐containing biofilms. However, P. aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause life‐threatening infections in immunocompromised patients. Therefore, we sought to engineer a non‐pathogenic P. aeruginosa strain that is safe for commercial production of alginate. Using a homologous recombination strategy, we sequentially deleted five key pathogenicity genes from the P. aeruginosa chromosome, resulting in the marker‐free strain PGN5. Intraperitoneal injection of mice with PGN5 resulted in 0% mortality, while injection with wild‐type P. aeruginosa resulted in 95% mortality, providing evidence that the systemic virulence of PGN5 is highly attenuated. Importantly, PGN5 produces large amounts of alginate in response to overexpression of MucE, an activator of alginate biosynthesis. The alginate produced by PGN5 is structurally identical to alginate produced by wild‐type P. aeruginosa, indicating that the alginate biosynthetic pathway remains functional in this modified strain. The genetic versatility of P. aeruginosa will allow us to further engineer PGN5 to produce alginates with specific chemical compositions and physical properties to meet different industrial and biomedical needs.

Alginate overproduction, or mucoidy, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of P. aeruginosa lung infection in cystic fibrosis (CF). Mucoid strains with mucA mutations predominantly populate in chronically-infected patients. However, the mucoid strains can revert to nonmucoidy in vitro through suppressor mutations. We screened a mariner transposon library using CF149, a non-mucoid clinical isolate with a misssense mutation in algU (AlgUA61V). The wild type AlgU is a stress-related sigma factor that activates transcription of alginate biosynthesis. Three mucoid mutants were identified with transposon insertions that caused 1) an overexpression of AlgUA61V, 2) an overexpression of the stringent starvation protein A (SspA), and 3) a reduced expression of the major sigma factor RpoD (σ70). Induction of AlgUA61V in trans caused conversion to mucoidy in CF149 and PAO1DalgU, suggesting that AlgUA61V is functional in activating alginate production. Furthermore, the level of AlgUA61V was increased in all three mutants relative to CF149. However, compared to the wild type AlgU, AlgUA61V had a reduced activity in promoting alginate production in PAO1ΔalgU. SspA and three other anti-σ70 orthologues, P. aeruginosa AlgQ, E. coli Rsd, and T4 phage AsiA, all induced mucoidy, suggesting that reducing activity of RpoD is linked to mucoid conversion in CF149. Conversely, RpoD overexpression resulted in suppression of mucoidy in all mucoid strains tested, indicating that sigma factor competition can regulate mucoidy. Additionally, an RpoD-dependent promoter (PssrA) was more active in non-mucoid strains than in isogenic mucoid variants. Altogether, our results indicate that the anti-σ70 factors can induce conversion to mucoidy in P. aeruginosa CF149 with algU-suppressor mutation via modulation of RpoD.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) can cause lysis of target bacteria by directly inserting themselves into the lipid bilayer. This killing mechanism confounds the identification of the intracellular targets of AMPs. To circumvent this, we used a shuttle vector containing the inducible expression of a human cathelicidin-related AMP, LL-37, to examine its effect on Escherichia coli TOP10 under aerobic and anaerobic growth conditions. Induction of LL-37 caused growth inhibition and alteration in cell morphology to a filamentous phenotype. Further examination of the E. coli cell division protein FtsZ revealed that LL-37 did not interact with FtsZ. Moreover, intracellular expression of LL-37 results in the enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), causing lethal membrane depolarization under aerobic conditions. Additionally, the membrane permeability was increased after intracellular expression of LL37 under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that intracellular LL-37 mainly affected the expression of genes related to energy production and carbohydrate metabolism. More specifically, genes related to oxidative phosphorylation under both aerobic and anaerobic growth conditions were affected. Collectively, our current study demonstrates that intracellular expression of LL-37 in E. coli can inhibit growth under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. While we confirmed that the generation of ROS is a bactericidal mechanism for LL-37 under aerobic growth conditions, we also found that the intracellular accumulation of cationic LL-37 influences the redox and ion status of the cells under both growth conditions. These data suggest that there is a new AMP-mediated bacterial killing mechanism that targets energy metabolism.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram negative, opportunistic pathogen that uses the overproduction of alginate, a surface polysaccharide, to form biofilms in vivo. Overproduction of alginate, also known as mucoidy, affords the bacterium protection from the host's defenses and facilitates the establishment of chronic lung infections in individuals with cystic fibrosis. Expression of the alginate biosynthetic operon is primarily controlled by the alternative sigma factor AlgU (AlgT/σ22). In a nonmucoid strain, AlgU is sequestered by the transmembrane antisigma factor MucA to the cytoplasmic membrane. AlgU can be released from MucA via regulated intramembrane proteolysis by proteases AlgW and MucP causing the conversion to mucoidy. Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PAO579, a derivative of the nonmucoid strain PAO1, is mucoid due to an unidentified mutation (muc-23). Using whole genome sequencing, we identified 16 nonsynonymous and 15 synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). We then identified three tandem single point mutations in the pilA gene (PA4525), as the cause of mucoidy in PAO579. These tandem mutations generate a premature stop codon resulting in a truncated version of PilA (PilA108), with a C-terminal motif of phenylalanine-threonine-phenylalanine (FTF). Inactivation of pilA108 confirmed it was required for mucoidy. Additionally, algW and algU were also required for mucoidy of PAO579. Western blot analysis indicated that MucA was less stable in PAO579 than nonmucoid PAO1 or PAO381. The mucoid phenotype and high PalgU and PalgD promoter activities of PAO579 require pilA108, algW, algU, and rpoN encoding the alternative sigma factor σ54. We also observed that RpoN regulates expression of algW and pilA in PAO579. Together, these results suggest that truncation in type IV pilin in P. aeruginosa strain PAO579 can induce mucoidy through an AlgW/AlgU-dependent pathway.