Iron starvation increases the production of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa RsmY and RsmZ sRNAs in static conditions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic Gram-negative pathogen that induces virulence gene expression in response to host-mediated iron starvation. Recently, our laboratory showed that some virulence factors are responsive to iron limitation in static but not shaking growth conditions. One of these is the HSI-2-type six secretion system (T6SS), which is also induced during chronic infection. Iron regulation of T6SS was partially impacted by the iron-responsive PrrF sRNA and completely dependent upon the Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS) biosynthetic gene pqsA . Here, we analyzed the impact of iron on the expression of two small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs), RsmY and RsmZ, that activate the expression of T6SS by sequestering the RsmA translation inhibitor. Our results demonstrate that iron starvation induces the expression of RsmY and RsmZ in static but not shaking cultures. We further show that this induction occurs through the rsmY and rsmZ promoters and is dependent upon PqsA. Disruption of either the pqsR gene also eliminated iron-dependent regulation of rsmY and rsmZ promoter activity. Taken together, our results show novel targets of iron regulation that are specific to static growth, highlighting the importance of studying regulatory mechanisms in static communities that may be more representative of growth during chronic infection. IMPORTANCE Iron is a central component of various bacterial metabolic pathways making it an important host-acquired nutrient for pathogens to establish infection. Previous iron regulatory studies primarily relied on shaking bacterial cultures; while these ensure cultural homogeneity, they do not reflect growth conditions during infection. We recently showed that static growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa promotes iron-dependent regulation of a type six secretion system (T6SS), a virulence factor that is induced during chronic infections. In the current study, we found that static growth also promotes iron-dependent regulation of the RsmY and RsmZ sRNAs, which are global regulators that affect T6SS during chronic P. aeruginosa lung infection. Hence, our work demonstrates the Rsm sRNAs as potential effectors of iron regulation during static growth that may also be relevant in chronic infection.