Tracking the genome of four Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates that have a defective Las quorum-sensing system, but are still virulent

Abstract

In this work we analysed the whole genome extended multilocus sequence typing (wgMLST) of four Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains that are characterized by being virulent despite having a defective Las quorum-sensing (QS) system, and compare them with the wgMLST of the PAO1 and PA14 type strains. This comparison was done to determine whether there was a genomic characteristic that was common to the strains with an atypical QS response. The analysed strains include two environmental isolates (ID 4365 isolated from the Indian Ocean, and M66 isolated from the Churince water system in Cuatro Ciénegas Coahuila, México), one veterinary isolate (strain 148 isolated from the stomach of a dolphin) and a clinical strain (INP43 that is a cystic fibrosis pediatric isolate). We determine that the six analysed strains have a core genome of 4689 loci that was used to construct a wgMLST-phylogeny tree. Using the cano-wgMLST_BacCompare software we found that there was no common genomic characteristic to the strains with an atypical QS-response and we identify ten loci that are highly discriminatory of the six strains’ phylogeny so that their MLST can reconstruct the wgMLST-phylogeny tree of these strains. We discuss here the nature of these ten highly discriminatory genes in the context of P. aeruginosa virulence and evolution.