Expression data from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 treated with phenylacetic acid

P. aeruginosa is known to cause acute cytotoxicity against various human and animal cells and tissues. We identified bacterial metabolite - phenylacetic acid (PAA) which acts as an inhibitory molecule counteracting its pathogenic infection. Microarray and genetic analyses were conducted to investigate the inhibitory mechanism of the identified inhibitor PAA on bacterial virulence. Microarray analysis revealed that treatment of P. aeruginosa with PAA down-regulated the transcriptional expression of type 3 secretion systems (T3SS) genes and related regulatory genes including rsmA and vfr, which were confirmed by transcriptional and translational analysis. Our findings present a new insight to the puzzle of high-cell-density-modulated virulence attenuation in P. aeruginosa and the regulatory mechanisms of T3SS which is associated with bacterial acute infection. Overnight PAO1 culture were diluted 1:200 to fresh LB medium supplemented with nitriloacetic acid (NTA) with or without addition of 1 mM of phenylacetic acid (PAA). The growth was continued with shaking at 37°C for 4 h to allow OD600 reaching about 1.5 and the cells were used for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.