RNA-seq transcriptome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 in Brain Heart Infusion broth

Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen. Armed with a relatively large genome encoding a versatile metabolism, P. aeruginosa is also an environmental microbe capable of living and thriving in varied environs. This helps account for the adaptability of this bacterium in different environmental and nutritional conditions. But, chief amongst these is the human pathogenicity of P. aeruginosa PAO1, where knowledge of its transcriptome would aid in deciphering the molecular mechanisms underpinning the relative success of this human pathogen in infecting immunocompromised patients. This thus forms the motivation for this work in processing the RNA-seq data of P. aeruginosa PAO1 wild-type cells cultivated in Brain Heart Infusion broth at 37 oC with 200 rpm shaking (ArrayExpress accession number: E-MTAB-6247). Using an in-house MATLAB RNA-seq analysis software, a total of 1.2 million reads were processed yielding a transcriptional map of this opportunistic pathogen. Specifically, the highly expressed genes were those encoding outer membrane lipoprotein OprI, outer membrane porin F OprF, chaperone protein ClpB, arginine/ornithine antiporter ArcD, molecular chaperone GroEL, lipid A 3-O-deacylase PagL, pyruvate carboxylase subunit B, and type 4 fimbrial protein PilA. Altogether, the transcriptome analysis paints a picture of a bacterium devoting significant metabolic resources to the maintenance of the cell membrane as well as mediating the correct folding of proteins. This could form the basis on which drug discovery work aiming to disrupt the outer membrane of P. aeruginosa PAO1 could be centred. Even interfering with protein folding could be a druggable target for drug discovery efforts. In all, the RNA-seq transcriptome of P. aeruginosa PAO1 presented in this work could inform future work aiming to both understand the basic biology of the bacterium’s growth in media reminiscent of the human environs as well as serving as important information for drug discovery efforts.