Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a ubiquitous, opportunistic pathogen that causes acute and chronic infections. Infection is typically initiated via motile and virulent strains. After exposure to stressors, acute infections make both genotypic and phenotypic switches to a chronic, sessile strain. This is due to intricate regulatory networks directing gene expression in response to stressors. One network, GacA/GacS, has been established to control virulence factors. The stringent response of bacteria is mediated by alarmones produced primarily by RelA which responds to starvation.
To study the effect of the stringent response on the virulence switch. A series of experiments were run in both PAO1, a virulent strain, and PDO300, an acute strain, and RelA deletion mutants of each transcriptional fusions of GacA/GacA system were integrated in the wild-types and mutants. Alginate, swimming, twitching, and biofilm formation assays were performed on all. The preliminary data suggests that the stringent response influences the GacA/GacS system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-5698 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Creators | Hooker, Michael Shawn |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors. |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds