TY - JOUR
T1 - The small RNA ErsA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa contributes to biofilm development and motility through post-transcriptional modulation of AmrZ
AU - Falcone, Marilena
AU - Ferrara, Silvia
AU - Rossi, Elio
AU - Johansen, Helle K.
AU - Molin, Søren
AU - Bertoni, Giovanni
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - The small RNA ErsA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was previously suggested to be involved in biofilm formation via negative post-transcriptional regulation of the algC gene that encodes the virulence-associated enzyme AlgC, which provides sugar precursors for the synthesis of several polysaccharides. In this study, we show that a knock-out ersA mutant strain forms a flat and uniform biofilm, not characterized by mushroom-multicellular structures typical of a mature biofilm. Conversely, the knock-out mutant strain showed enhanced swarming and twitching motilities. To assess the influence of ErsA on the P. aeruginosa transcriptome, we performed RNA-seq experiments comparing the knock-out mutant with the wild-type. More than 160 genes were found differentially expressed in the knock-out mutant. Parts of these genes, important for biofilm formation and motility regulation, are known to belong also to the AmrZ transcriptional regulator regulon. Here, we show that ErsA binds in vitro and positively regulates amrZ mRNA at post-transcriptional level in vivo suggesting an interesting contribution of the ErsA-amrZ mRNA interaction in biofilm development at several regulatory levels.
AB - The small RNA ErsA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was previously suggested to be involved in biofilm formation via negative post-transcriptional regulation of the algC gene that encodes the virulence-associated enzyme AlgC, which provides sugar precursors for the synthesis of several polysaccharides. In this study, we show that a knock-out ersA mutant strain forms a flat and uniform biofilm, not characterized by mushroom-multicellular structures typical of a mature biofilm. Conversely, the knock-out mutant strain showed enhanced swarming and twitching motilities. To assess the influence of ErsA on the P. aeruginosa transcriptome, we performed RNA-seq experiments comparing the knock-out mutant with the wild-type. More than 160 genes were found differentially expressed in the knock-out mutant. Parts of these genes, important for biofilm formation and motility regulation, are known to belong also to the AmrZ transcriptional regulator regulon. Here, we show that ErsA binds in vitro and positively regulates amrZ mRNA at post-transcriptional level in vivo suggesting an interesting contribution of the ErsA-amrZ mRNA interaction in biofilm development at several regulatory levels.
KW - Biofilm
KW - Post-transcriptional regulation
KW - Pseudomonas aeruginosa
KW - Small regulatory RNA
KW - Virulence
U2 - 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00238
DO - 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00238
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 29497413
AN - SCOPUS:85042074910
SN - 1664-302X
VL - 9
JO - Frontiers in Microbiology
JF - Frontiers in Microbiology
IS - FEB
M1 - 238
ER -