Use of Model Plant Hosts to Identify Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence Factors

We used plants as an in vivo pathogenesis model for the identification of virulence factors of the human opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nine of nine TnphoA mutant derivatives of P. aeruginosa strain UCBPP-PA14 that were identified in a plant leaf assay for less pathogenic mutants als...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 94; no. 24; pp. 13245 - 13250
Main Authors Rahme, Laurence G., Tan, Man-Wah, Le, Long, Wong, Sandy M., Tompkins, Ronald G., Calderwood, Stephen B., Ausubel, Frederick M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 25.11.1997
National Acad Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Subjects
Animals
Arabidopsis - microbiology
Bacteria
Biological Sciences
Disease models
Evolution, Molecular
Flowers & plants
Genetic mutation
Genetic screening
Lettuce
Male
Mice
Microbiology
Models, Biological
Molecular Sequence Data
Mutagenesis
Open reading frames
Pathogenesis
Pathogens
Phenotypes
Pseudomonas aeruginosa - pathogenicity
Virulence
Virulence - genetics
Virulence factors
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Summary:We used plants as an in vivo pathogenesis model for the identification of virulence factors of the human opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nine of nine TnphoA mutant derivatives of P. aeruginosa strain UCBPP-PA14 that were identified in a plant leaf assay for less pathogenic mutants also exhibited significantly reduced pathogenicity in a burned mouse pathogenicity model, suggesting that P. aeruginosa utilizes common strategies to infect both hosts. Seven of these nine mutants contain TnphoA insertions in previously unknown genes. These results demonstrate that an alternative nonvertebrate host of a human bacterial pathogen can be used in an in vivo high throughput screen to identify novel bacterial virulence factors involved in mammalian pathogenesis.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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Contributed by Frederick M. Ausubel
To whom reprint requests should be addressed. e-mail: ausubel@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.94.24.13245