Metabolic specialization drives reduced pathogenicity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from cystic fibrosis patients

Bjarke Haldrup Pedersen, Filipa Bica Simões, Ivan Pogrebnyakov, Martin Welch, Helle Krogh Johansen, Søren Molin and Ruggero La Rosa

PLOS Biology, 2024, vol. 22, issue 8, 1-26

Abstract: Metabolism provides the foundation for all cellular functions. During persistent infections, in adapted pathogenic bacteria metabolism functions radically differently compared with more naïve strains. Whether this is simply a necessary accommodation to the persistence phenotype or if metabolism plays a direct role in achieving persistence in the host is still unclear. Here, we characterize a convergent shift in metabolic function(s) linked with the persistence phenotype during Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonization in the airways of people with cystic fibrosis. We show that clinically relevant mutations in the key metabolic enzyme, pyruvate dehydrogenase, lead to a host-specialized metabolism together with a lower virulence and immune response recruitment. These changes in infection phenotype are mediated by impaired type III secretion system activity and by secretion of the antioxidant metabolite, pyruvate, respectively. Our results show how metabolic adaptations directly impinge on persistence and pathogenicity in this organism.he role of metabolism in bacterial persistence during infections is not clear. This study shows that host-specialized metabolic adaptations in Pseudomonas aeruginosa reduce virulence and immune responses in cystic fibrosis patients.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002781 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file ... 02781&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3002781

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002781

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Biology from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosbiology ().