Co-culture biofilm patterns among different Pseudomonas aeruginosa clones from cystic fibrosis patients

Abstract

Background

Pseudomonas aeruginosa chronic lung infection is the leading cause of death in the cystic fibrosis (CF) population. The high genome versatility of this microorganism allows it to adapt to the hostile CF lung where the same clone can persist for decades. Paranasal sinuses serve as a reservoir for bacterial adaptation before lung infection. Our study investigates biofilm compatibility among identical and different P. aeruginosa genotypes from sinus and lungs of CF patients. Strains were further characterized by whole genome sequencing and motility assays were performed.

Methodology

Motility, gentamicin susceptibility and growth rates were assessed in four strains coming from three CF patients. The strains were subjected to whole genome sequencing with the Illumina MiSeq platform.

Conjugation assays using the mini Tn7 transposon were performed in order to tag bacteria with the fluorescent proteins YFP (yellow) and CFP (cyan). Biofilm experiments were carried out in a flow cell system and images were acquired using a confocal laser microscope (CLSM) on days 3 and 5. Four experiments were performed: Experiment 1 with two clonal isolates from sinus and lungs from patient P01 (CF430-142, CF430-11621); experiments 2 (CF430-11621 + 75885-B) and 3 (CF430-11621 + 80271-B) with two lung isolates belonging to two different clones from different patients (P02, P03) and experiment 4 with one lung strain (CF430-11621) and P. aeruginosa PAO1 reference strain.

Results

P. aeruginosa clonal isolates coming from paranasal sinuses and lungs from the same patient were able to form mixed biofilm. When different clones were employed no mixed biofilms were observed. Similar results were observed when combining the lung strain and the reference strain PAO1. Biofilms of both strains were observed in the flow-cell channels but no mixed biofilms of them were observed, with the exception of strain 75887-B which did not appear to form any biofilm when mixed with strain CF430-11621. All strains performed swarming while strains CF430-142 and 75887B lacked twitching motility. An aminoacidic change in SadB was observed in the strain 75887B.

Conclusion

Mixed biofilms were only observed when identical clones from the same patient were cultured together. Our experiments indicate that twitching motility does not significantly affect biofilm formation or architecture in our isolates.