Functional characterization of the RNA chaperone Hfq in opportunistic human pathogen Stenotrophomonas maltophilia

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is an important opportunistic pathogen affecting primarily hospitalized and immuno-compromised hosts. We constructed an hfq deletion mutant (Delta-hfq) of S. maltophilia, and compared the behaviour of wild-type and Delta-hfq S. maltophilia cells in a variety of assays. Differential RNA sequencing analysis (dRNA-seq) of RNA isolated from S. maltophilia wild-type and Delta-hfq strains showed that Hfq regulates expression of genes encoding flagellar and fimbrial components, transmembrane proteins, as well as enzymes involved in different metabolic pathways. Moreover, we analysed expression of several sRNAs identified by dRNA-seq in wild-type. The accumulation of two sRNAs was strongly reduced in the absence of Hfq. Overall design: TEX (terminator exonuclease) treated and untreated libraries of the wild type and the Delta-hfq mutant were sequenced and compared