The Absence of Osmoregulated Periplasmic Glucan Confers Antimicrobial Resistance and Increases Virulence in Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Clarifying the molecular mechanisms by which bacteria acquire virulence traits is important for understanding the bacterial virulence system. In the present study, we utilized a bacterial evolution method in a silkworm infection model and revealed that deletion of the opgGH operon, encoding synthases for osmoregulated periplasmic glucan (OPG), increased the virulence of a nonpathogenic laboratory strain of Escherichia coli against silkworms. The opgGH knockout mutant exhibited resistance to host antimicrobial peptides and antibiotics. Compared with the parent strain, the opgGH knockout mutant produced greater amounts of colanic acid, which is involved in E. coli resistance to antibiotics. RNA sequence analysis revealed that the opgGH knockout altered the express

SUBMITTER: Murakami K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8316038 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature