Pseudomonas aeruginosa core metabolism exerts a widespread growth-independent control on virulence

Gene expression analysis of highly vs. lowly pathogenic P. aeruginosa strains identifies many virulence factors and only a few metabolism genes related to virulence. Functional transcriptomics re-analysis of core metabolism at the pathway level, reveals amino-acid, succinate, citramalate, and chorismate biosynthesis and beta-oxidation as important for full virulence and expression of these pathways indicative of virulence in various strains. Highly pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains (PA14, MTB-1 and B136-33) were compared with lowly pathogenic ones (CF5, C3719 and PACS2) via RNAseq using RNA isolated from LB cultures at OD600nm 1 and 3 in 2 biological replicates each.