Pseudomonas aeruginosa modulates alginate biosynthesis and type VI secretion system in two critically ill COVID-19 patients

Cell & Bioscience

Zhaofang Jiang¹  Jiuxin Qu¹  Liang Yang²  Lei Liu³  Yingxia Liu³  Yang Liu⁴  Fang Bai⁵  Han Zhang⁶  Kaiwei Yu⁶  Zhao Cai⁶  Xiangke Duan⁶  Shuhong Han⁶  Yingdan Zhang⁶  Hang Cheng⁶ 

[1] Department of Clinical Laboratory, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, Second Hospital Affiliated to Southern University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases (Tuberculosis), National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, 518000, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China;Department of Clinical Laboratory, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, Second Hospital Affiliated to Southern University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases (Tuberculosis), National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, 518000, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China;School of Medicine, Southern University of Science and Technology, 518055, Shenzhen, China;Shenzhen Key Laboratory for Gene Regulation and Systems Biology, Southern University of Science and Technology, 518055, Shenzhen, China;Department of Clinical Laboratory, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, Second Hospital Affiliated to Southern University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases (Tuberculosis), National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, 518000, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China;Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Immunity, State Key Discipline of Infectious Disease, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, Second Hospital Affiliated to Southern University of Science and Technology, 518112, Shenzhen, China;Medical Research Center, Southern University of Science and Technology Hospital, 518055, Shenzhen, China;School of Biological Sciences, Nankai University, 300071, Tianjin, China;School of Medicine, Southern University of Science and Technology, 518055, Shenzhen, China;

关键词: Pseudomonas aeruginosa;    COVID-19;    Bacterial superinfection;    Type VI Secretion System;    Biofilm;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13578-022-00748-z

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCOVID-19 pneumonia has caused huge impact on the health of infected patients and associated with high morbidity and mortality. Shift in the lung microbial ecology upon such viral infection often worsens the disease and increases host susceptibility to superinfections. Bacterial superinfection contributes to the aggravation of COVID-19 and poses a great challenge to clinical treatments. An in-depth investigation on superinfecting bacteria in COVID-19 patients might facilitate understanding of lung microenvironment post virus infections and superinfection mechanism.ResultsWe analyzed the adaptation of two pairs of P. aeruginosa strains with the same MLST type isolated from two critical COVID-19 patients by combining sequencing analysis and phenotypic assays. Both P. aeruginosa strains were found to turn on alginate biosynthesis and attenuate type VI secretion system (T6SS) during short-term colonization in the COVID-19 patients, which results in excessive biofilm formation and virulence reduction-two distinct markers for chronic infections. The macrophage cytotoxicity test and intracellular reactive oxygen species measurement confirmed that the adapted P. aeruginosa strains reduced their virulence towards host cells and are better to escape from host immune clearance than their ancestors.ConclusionOur study suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection can create a lung environment that allow rapid adaptive evolution of bacterial pathogens with genetic traits suitable for chronic infections.

【 授权许可】

CC BY