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Increased production of the extracellular polysaccharide Psl can give a growth advantage to Pseudomonas aeruginosa in low-iron conditions

Jaime Hutchison, Karishma Kaushik, Christopher A. Rodesney, Thomas Lilieholm, Layla Bakhtiari, View ORCID ProfileVernita D. Gordon
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/355339
Jaime Hutchison
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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Karishma Kaushik
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
2Biology Instructional Office, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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Christopher A. Rodesney
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
3Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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Thomas Lilieholm
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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Layla Bakhtiari
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
3Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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Vernita D. Gordon
1Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
3Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
4Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
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  • ORCID record for Vernita D. Gordon
  • For correspondence: gordon@chaos.utexas.edu
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Abstract

In infections, biofilm formation is associated with a number of fitness advantages, such as resistance to antibiotics and to clearance by the immune system. Biofilm formation has also been linked to fitness advantages in environments other than in vivo infections; primarily, biofilms are thought to help constituent organisms evade predation and to promote intercellular signaling. The opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa forms biofilm infections in lungs, wounds, and on implants and medical devices. However, the tendency toward biofilm formation originated in this bacterium’s native environment, primarily plants and soil. Such environments are polymicrobial and often resource-limited. Other researchers have recently shown that the P. aeruginosa extracellular polysaccharide Psl can bind iron. For the lab strain PA01, Psl is also the dominant adhesive and cohesive “glue” holding together multicellular aggregates and biofilms. Here, we perform quantitative time-lapse confocal microscopy and image analysis of early biofilm growth by PA01. We find that aggregates of P. aeruginosa have a growth advantage over single cells of P. aeruginosa in the presence of Staphylococcus aureus in low-iron environments. Our results suggest the growth advantage of aggregates is linked to their high Psl content and to the production of an active factor by S. aureus. We posit that the ability of Psl to promote iron acquisition may have been linked to the evolutionary development of the strong biofilm-forming tendencies of P. aeruginosa.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 25, 2018.
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Increased production of the extracellular polysaccharide Psl can give a growth advantage to Pseudomonas aeruginosa in low-iron conditions
Jaime Hutchison, Karishma Kaushik, Christopher A. Rodesney, Thomas Lilieholm, Layla Bakhtiari, Vernita D. Gordon
bioRxiv 355339; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/355339
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Increased production of the extracellular polysaccharide Psl can give a growth advantage to Pseudomonas aeruginosa in low-iron conditions
Jaime Hutchison, Karishma Kaushik, Christopher A. Rodesney, Thomas Lilieholm, Layla Bakhtiari, Vernita D. Gordon
bioRxiv 355339; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/355339

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