The role of Serratia marcescens OmpF and OmpC porins in antibiotic resistance and virulence
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Date
2014
Authors
Moya Torres, Aniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Microbiology
Abstract
Serratia marcescens is a microorganism that constitutes one of the primary causes of nosocomial outbreaks in hospitals. One characteristic of S. marcescens clinical isolates is the high resistance to antimicrobials used in the clinic. Recent reports have attributed antibiotic resistance to altered porin expression. In this study, S. marcescens Db11 isogenic porin mutants were generated using the generalized transducing phage IF3 to move marked target-genes between isogenic strain backgrounds, prior to removal of the antibiotic resistance cassette by Flp-FRT strategy. Mutants for three classical porins were obtained and the effect of ompF and ompC deletion on antimicrobial resistance was evaluated by MIC. The use of this method avoided the incorporation of additional resistance markers and is an alternative strategy to create clean unmarked Serratia mutant strains. The lack of OmpF, but not OmpC, significantly increased MIC values to the β-lactam drugs such as ampicillin and cefoxitin as well as to nitrofurantoin. Genetic deletion of both ompF and ompC did not compromise the integrity of the bacterial cell envelope in optimal growth conditions, suggesting that other outer-membrane porins may function in a compensatory role to facilitate nutrient uptake and cell envelope integrity. S. marcescens is a pathogen of C. elegans and can be used to study host response to bacterial infections. The host model Caenorhabditis elegans was used in this study to investigate if porin deficits affected bacterial virulence. When porin mutants were evaluated in the C. elegans host model, the virulence of the single porin mutant strains increased in comparison to the wild-type. This study demonstrated that mutations of ompF and ompC did not attenuate S. marcescens virulence, but rather demonstrated a hypervirulent phenotype when they were assessed in C. elegans. The absence of OmpF and OmpC porins in S. marcescens appeared to increase the bacterial invasion of C. elegans nematode tissue. Further studies are required to fully investigate the hypervirulent phenotype of these mutant strains. This study reveals that decrease of outer membrane permeability due to porin mutation alters antimicrobial resistance and does not generate virulence attenuation in S. marcescens Db11.
Description
Keywords
Serratia marcescens, Porins
Citation
Microbiology. 2014 Sep;160(Pt 9):1882-92. doi: 10.1099/mic.0.081166-0. Title: The lack of OmpF, but not OmpC, contributes to increased antibiotic resistance in Serratia marcescens.