The role of the type VI secretion system vgrG gene in the virulence and antimicrobial resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 19606

PLoS One. 2018 Feb 2;13(2):e0192288. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192288. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) is an important virulence system that exists in many bacterial pathogens, and has emerged as a potent mediator of pathogenicity in Acinetobacter baumannii. In this study, we inactivated one of the T6SS components vgrG (valine-glycine repeat G) gene in A. baumannii ATCC 19606 and constructed a complementation strain. BEAS-2b human alveolar epithelial cells was adopted to assess bacterial adhesion, and wild female BALB/c mice were used for in vivo experiments to assess the bacterial killing ability to host. Upon deletion of the vgrG gene, increased antimicrobial resistance to ampicillin/sulbactam, but reduced resistance to chloramphenicol were observed. The vgrG mutant strain showed lower growth rate, reduced eukaryotic cell adherence and impaired lethality in mice. However, the vgrG mutant strain is not implicated in biofilm formation. Our study suggests that the Type VI Secretion System core component VgrG contributes to both virulence and antimicrobial resistance in A. baumannii ATCC 19606.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acinetobacter baumannii / drug effects
  • Acinetobacter baumannii / genetics*
  • Acinetobacter baumannii / pathogenicity
  • Animals
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics*
  • Biofilms
  • Drug Resistance, Bacterial / genetics*
  • Female
  • Genetic Complementation Test
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred BALB C
  • Microbial Sensitivity Tests
  • Mutation
  • Virulence / genetics*

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins

Grants and funding

This study was supported by research grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (81371858 to YJ), the 973 Preliminary Research Program (2014CB560707 to YY), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LQY18H190001 to JW), and Zhejiang Provincial Medical and Health Science and Technology Plan (2017KY125 to JW). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.