Multiple antibiotic susceptibility of polyphosphate kinase mutants (ppk1 and ppk2) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 as revealed by global phenotypic analysis.

Abstract

BackgroundPseudomonas aeruginosa is known to be a multidrug resistant opportunistic pathogen. Particularly, P. aeruginosa PAO1 polyphosphate kinase mutant (ppk1) is deficient in motility, quorum sensing, biofilm formation and virulence.FindingsBy using Phenotypic Microarrays (PM) we analyzed near 2000 phenotypes of P. aeruginosa PAO1 polyP kinase mutants (ppk1 and ppk2). We found that both ppk mutants shared most of the phenotypic changes and interestingly many of them related to susceptibility toward numerous and different type of antibiotics such as Ciprofloxacin, Chloramphenicol and Rifampicin.ConclusionsCombining the fact that ppk1 mutants have reduced virulence and are more susceptible to antibiotics, polyP synthesis and particularly PPK1, is a good target for the design of molecules with anti-virulence and anti-persistence properties.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40659-015-0012-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.