The ABC Transport Protein PotC Plays a Crucial Role in Antibiotic Resistance in Escherichia coli

The phenomenon of microbial resistance is becoming increasingly serious. The efflux pump system plays a key role in bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The transcriptional profile of Escherichia coli treated with antibiotics revealed the pathways and response mechanisms of up- or down-regulation of efflux pump-related genes. In this study, 104 of all 2548 genes, efflux pump-related differentially significantly expressed genes were screened. The most significant spermidine transport in the Gene Ontology functional enrichment analysis was the most likely important pathway for the E. coli species to respond to antibiotics. The functional enrichment results of Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes showed that most of the antibiotic-induced transport proteins belong to the “ABC family efflux pumps”. The results of the protein-protein interaction network indicated that potC might act as a key gene for E. coli to respond to antibiotics. Finally, overexpressing strains of potC were constructed, and the survival rates of overexpressing strains of potC were improved by 18.9, 14.0, 43.3, and 31.7% after treatment with four antibiotics: gentamicin, norfloxacin, chloramphenicol, and cefotaxime sodium, respectively. This further suggested the role of PotC in the resistance of E. coli to antibiotics, providing scientific support for the study of bacterial resistance mechanisms.