Project description:Plasmid maintenance costs to bacterial hosts is closely linked to the mechanisms that underlie plasmid fitness and how these costs are resolved. Herein, we performed multiple (63) serial passage to explore the compensatory mechanisms of co-evolution of multidrug-resistant IncHI2 plasmid pJXP9 and S. Typhimurium strain ATCC 14028 with or without antibiotic selection. pJXP9 could be maintained at for hundreds of generations even without drug exposure. Decreased lag times and higher competitive advantages were observed in end-point evolved strains bearing pJXP9 compared to ancestral strains. Genomic and transcriptomic analyses revealed that the fitness costs of pJXP9 in ATCC 14028 were derived from not only specific plasmid genes, particularly the multidrug-resistant region and conjugation transfer region I, but also the conflicts resulting from chromosomal gene interactions. Correspondingly, plasmid-borne deletions of these regions could compensate the fitness cost due to the presence of the plasmid. Furthermore, mutations and mRNA alterations in chromosomal genes involved in physiological functions were also adaptative. These functions included decreased flagellar motility, oxidative stress resistance and fumaric acid synthesis, and increased Cu resistance. Our findings suggest that plasmid maintenance through plasmid-bacteria co-evolution is a trade-off between increasing plasmid vertical transmission and impairing its horizontal transmission and bacterial physiological phenotypes.
Project description:Experimental evolution using Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its plasmid pQBR103 to investigate costs of plasmid carriage and compensatory mutations to ameliorate these costs
Project description:Plasmid fitness is directed by two orthogonal processes—vertical transfer through cell division and horizontal transfer through conjugation. When considered individually, improvements in either mode of transfer can promote how well a plasmid spreads and persists. Together, however, the metabolic cost of conjugation could create a tradeoff that constrains plasmid evolution. Here we present evidence for the presence, consequences, and molecular basis of a conjugation-growth tradeoff across 40 plasmids derived from clinical E. coli pathogens. We discover that most plasmids operate below a conjugation efficiency threshold for major growth effects, indicating strong natural selection for vertical transfer. Below this threshold, E. coli demonstrates a remarkable growth tolerance to over four orders of magnitude change in conjugation efficiency. This tolerance fades as nutrients become scarce and horizontal transfer attracts a greater share of host resources. Our results provide insight into evolutionary constraints directing plasmid fitness and strategies to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Project description:The multidrug resistance-encoding plasmids belonging to the IncA/C incompatibility group have recently emerged among Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica in the United States. These plasmids have a unique genetic structure compared to other enterobacterial plasmid types, a broad host range, and propensity to acquire large numbers of antimicrobial resistance genes via their accessory regions. Using E. coli strain DH5α harboring the prototype IncA/C plasmid pAR060302, we sought to define the baseline transcriptome of IncA/C plasmids under laboratory growth and in the face of selective pressure. The effects of ampicillin, florfenicol or streptomycin exposure were compared to cells left untreated at logarithmic phase using Illumina sequencing (RNA-Seq). Under growth in Luria-Bertani broth lacking antibiotics, much of the backbone of pAR060302 was transcriptionally inactive, including its putative transfer regions. A few plasmid backbone genes of interest were highly transcribed, including genes of a putative toxin-antitoxin system and an H-NS-like transcriptional regulator. In contrast, numerous genes within the accessory regions of pAR060302 were highly transcribed, including the resistance genes floR, blaCMY-2, aadA, and aacA. Antibiotic treatment with ampicillin or streptomycin resulted in no genes being differentially expressed compared to controls lacking antibiotics, suggesting that many of the resistance-associated genes are not differentially expressed due to exposure to these antibiotics. In contrast, florfenicol treatment resulted in the up-regulation of floR and numerous chromosomally encoded genes. Overall, the transcriptome mapping of pAR060302 suggests that it mitigates the fitness costs of carrying resistance-associated genes through global regulation with its transcriptional regulators.
Project description:To further explore potential molecular mechanisms and pathways by which the presence or absence of the pGKT2 plasmid may be affecting the overall fitness cost in the native Gordonia sp KTR9 strain, transcriptome studies were performed. Transcriptome experiments comparing KTR9 wild-type and mutant strains grown in rich media confirmed the loss of the pGKT2 plasmid and also indicated the loss of the 90 kb pGKT1 plasmid.
Project description:To further explore potential molecular mechanisms and pathways by which the presence or absence of the pGKT2 plasmid may be affecting the overall fitness cost in a transconjugant Rhodococcus jostii RHA1 strain, transcriptome studies were performed. Transcriptome experiments comparing RHA1 wild-type and RHA1 transconjugant strains grown in rich media confirmed the presence of the pGKT2 plasmid.
Project description:Impacts of plasmid carriage on its host cell were comprehensively analyzed using conjugative plasmid pCAR1 in the three different kinds of hosts, Pseudomonas putida KT2440, P. aeruginosa PAO1, and P. fluorescens Pf0-1. Various analyses of the host phenotype showed that pCAR1 carriage reduced host fitness, swimming motility, and resistances to osmotic- or pH-stress, and brought about the alterations of primary metabolic capacities in the TCA cycle or those several steps away from the TCA cycle in the host cells. Growth phase-dependent transcriptome analyses were performed with the classification of the annotated genes based on their identities among the three hosts and their putative functions. pCAR1 carriage affected host transcriptome more greatly at the transition and stationary phases in each host. The transcriptome responses were more similar between KT2440 and PAO1 than between other host combinations, and many genes, such as for ribosomal proteins, F-type ATPase, and RNAP core, in both strains were commonly not suppressed in their stationary phases. These responses may have resulted in the reduction of host fitness, motility, and stress resistances. Host-specific responses to plasmid carriage were transcriptional changes of genes on putative prophage or foreign DNA regions. The extent of the impacts in host phenotypes and transcriptomes was similarly the largest in KT2440 and the lowest in Pf0-1. The host alterations controlled by pCAR1 carriage are important for understanding the fate of the plasmid and its host, plasmid maintenance, expression of plasmid genes, the host cell physiology, and host survivability in the environment.
Project description:Transcriptional profiling of A. oleivorans DR1 cells harboring pAST2. Plasmid pAST2 is a tetracycline-resistance plasmid which was isolated from activated sludge (Hong et al., 2014). The complete plasmid sequence was deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank under accession number KC734561 [PMID: 24337108]. Acquisition of TC resistance through plasmid uptake is related to loss of biological fitness and affected host gene expression in oil-degrading soil bacterium, Acinetobacter oleivorans DR1. To identify genes in A. oleivorans DR1 harboring pAST2, the cells were grown to exponential phase (OD600 ~0.4) and total RNA was extracted using an RNeasy Mini kit (Qiagen, USA) following the manufacturer's instructions.
Project description:MIPP-Seq provides an ultra-sensitive, low-cost approach for detecting and validating known and novel mutations in a highly scalable system with broad utility spanning both research and clinical diagnostic testing applications. The scalability of MIPP-Seq allows for multiplexing mutations and samples, which dramatically reduce costs of variant validation when compared to methods like ddPCR. By leveraging the power of individual analyses of multiple unique and independent reactions, MIPP-Seq can validate and precisely quantitate extremely low AAFs across multiple tissues and mutational categories including both indels and SNVs. Furthermore, using Illumina sequencing technology, MIPP-seq provides a robust method for accurate detection of novel mutations at an extremely low AAF.