E. coli CFT073 transposon mutants in the murine model of urinary tract infection

Tn-seq studies previously done in the Mobley lab identified 203 preliminary fitness factors in UPEC strain CFT073 during UTI from the 2914 ordered library transposon mutants. 46 of these preliminary hits were associated with transport systems. However, only 25 of the original 203 hits were followed up for validation and further characterization; none of these were transporters. A major limitation of this Tn-seq study was the severe bottleneck in the traditional ascending mouse model of UTI. To compensate, we used a modified model where the bottleneck was less stringent. To overcome these limitations, transporter mutants were divided into smaller ordered libraries and tested in the traditional model for ascending UTI. The working hypothesis is that several UPEC transporters will be considered essential fitness factors for UTI, specifically known and unknown transport systems for amino acids and short peptides. 466 ordered library transporter mutants were tested in a CBA/J infection model for 24 hours with a Tn-seq experiment. Those sequencing data are deposited here.