Real-time visualization of drug resistance acquisition by horizontal gene transfer reveals a new role for AcrAB-TolC multidrug efflux pump

In our study, we obtained evidence showing that, in the presence of tetracycline, AcrAB-TolC multidrug efflux pump was required for production of protein encoded by a conjugative plasmid acquired by bacterial conjugation. We then address the role of AcrAB-TolC multidrug efflux pump on the level of protein synthesis activity in the presence of tetracycline, which inhibits protein translation by targeting ribosomal 16S rRNA and competing with binding of the anticodon-stem loop of an A-site tRNA. We used a quantitative TMT-nanoLC-mass spectrometry approach to obtained the protein relative abundance ratio before and after incubation with tetracycline, and so in wild-type(MG1655, K12) and AcrAB-TolC mutant strains (ΔacrA, ΔacrB and ΔtolC).