This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental material
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Battle, S. E.
Right arrow Articles by Hauser, A. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Battle, S. E.
Right arrow Articles by Hauser, A. R.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Bacteriology, November 2008, p. 7130-7140, Vol. 190, No. 21
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00785-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Hybrid Pathogenicity Island PAGI-5 Contributes to the Highly Virulent Phenotype of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolate in Mammals{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Scott E. Battle,1 Folker Meyer,2 Jordi Rello,3 Vanderlene L. Kung,1 and Alan R. Hauser1,4*

Departments of Microbiology/Immunology,1 Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611,4 Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439,2 Critical Care Department and CIBER Enfermedades Respiratorias, Joan XXIII University Hospital, Rovira and Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain3

Received 4 June 2008/ Accepted 11 August 2008

Most known virulence determinants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are remarkably conserved in this bacterium's core genome, yet individual strains differ significantly in virulence. One explanation for this discrepancy is that pathogenicity islands, regions of DNA found in some strains but not in others, contribute to the overall virulence of P. aeruginosa. Here we employed a strategy in which the virulence of a panel of P. aeruginosa isolates was tested in mouse and plant models of disease, and a highly virulent isolate, PSE9, was chosen for comparison by subtractive hybridization to a less virulent strain, PAO1. The resulting subtractive hybridization sequences were used as tags to identify genomic islands found in PSE9 but absent in PAO1. One 99-kb island, designated P. aeruginosa genomic island 5 (PAGI-5), was a hybrid of the known P. aeruginosa island PAPI-1 and novel sequences. Whereas the PAPI-1-like sequences were found in most tested isolates, the novel sequences were found only in the most virulent isolates. Deletional analysis confirmed that some of these novel sequences contributed to the highly virulent phenotype of PSE9. These results indicate that targeting highly virulent strains of P. aeruginosa may be a useful strategy for identifying pathogenicity islands and novel virulence determinants.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 303 East Chicago Avenue, Searle 6-495, Chicago, IL 60611. Phone: (312) 503-1044. Fax: (312) 503-1339. E-mail: ahauser{at}northwestern.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 29 August 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, November 2008, p. 7130-7140, Vol. 190, No. 21
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00785-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»