The Single-Nucleotide Resolution Transcriptome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Grown in Body Temperature

One of the hallmarks of opportunistic pathogens is their ability to adjust and respond to a wide range of environmental and host-associated conditions. the human pathogen pseudomonas aeruginosa has an ability to thrive in a variety of hosts and cause a range of acute and chronic infections in individuals with impaired host defenses or cystic fibrosis. here we report an in-depth transcriptional profiling of this organism when grown at host-related temperatures. using rna-seq of samples from p. aeruginosa grown at 28°c and 37°c we detected genes preferentially expressed at the body temperature of mammalian hosts,suggesting that they play a role during infection. these temperature-induced genes included the type iii secretion system (t3ss) genes and effectors,as well as the genes responsible for phenazines biosynthesis. using genome-wide transcription start site (tss) mapping by rna-seq we were able to accurately define the promoters and cis-acting rna elements of many genes,and uncovered new genes and previously unrecognized non-coding rnas directly controlled by the lasr quorum sensing regulator. overall we identified 165 small rnas and over 380 cis-antisense rnas,some of which predicted to perform regulatory functions,and found that non-coding rnas are preferentially localized in pathogenicity islands and horizontally transferred regions. our work identifies regulatory features of p. aeruginosa genes whose products play a role in environmental adaption during infection and provides a reference transcriptional landscape for this pathogen. © 2012 wurtzel et al.