Urte Starkevic, Sarunas Paskevicius, Audrius Misiunas, Viktorija Dapkute, Astra Vitkauskiene, Yuri Gleba and Ausra Razanskiene
Nomads UAB, Lithuania Nomad Bioscience GmbH, Germany Institute of Biotechnology - Vilnius University, Lithuania Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Lithuania
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Arch Clin Microbiol
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gram-negative bacterium, a common pathogen in healthcare-associated infections. This opportunistic microorganism establishes itself in vulnerable patients, such as those with cystic fibrosis or hospitalized in intensive care units. P. aeruginosa is one of ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp.) causing hospital infections, which readily develops resistance to antibiotics. Various P. aeruginosa strains rival with each other by secreting various activity spectrum antibacterial proteins called pyocins: deoxyribonucleases, ribonucleases, poreforming proteins, peptidoglycan synthesis-blocking proteins, lectin-like proteins, and bacteriophage tail-like protein complexes. We successfully expressed pyocins of several different types in Nicotiana benthamiana - TMV (Tobacco Mosaic Virus) transient expression system and purified them to homogeneity. We demonstrated that plant-expressed pyocins effectively reduce P. aeruginosa CFU (colony forming unit) counts in liquid culture and biofilm assays and rescue Galleria mellonella larvae from lethal P. aeruginosa infection in challenge assays. Since pyocins tend to be strain specific, we evaluated the spectrum of their activity with a collection of one hundred clinical strains. By using only three pyocins (S5, PaeM and PaeM4), we were able to target as much as 68% of tested clinical strains, including multidrug resistant isolates. In conclusion, plant-expressed pyocins may have potential use as antimicrobial agents. Recent Publications 1. Starkevi? U et al. (2015) High-yield production of a functional bacteriophage lysin with antipneumococcal activity using a plant virus-based expression system. Journal of Biotechnology. 200:10-16. 2. Paškevi?ius Š (2017) Plant expressed pyocins for control of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. PLoS ONE 12(10):e0185782.
Urt?? Starkevi? is a PhD student of Chemical Engineering at Vilnius University, Lithuania and a Research Worker in UAB Nomads company. She is currently focusing on synthesis of antimicrobial proteins using a plant virus-based expression system.
E-mail: urte@nomadsbio.lt
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