The Regulatory Network of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important bacterial model due to its metabolic and pathogenic abilities, which allow it to interact and colonize a wide range of hosts, including plants and animals. In this work we compile and analyze the structure and organization of an experimentally supported regulatory network in this bacterium.

Results: The regulatory network consists of 690 genes and 1020 regulatory interactions between their products (12% of total genes: 54% sigma and 16% of transcription factors). This complex interplay makes the third largest regulatory network of those reported in bacteria. The entire network is enriched for activating interactions and, peculiarly, self-activation seems to occur more prominent for transcription factors (TFs), which contrasts with other biological networks where self-repression is dominant. The network contains a giant component of 650 genes organized into 11 hierarchies, encompassing important biological processes, such as, biofilms formation, production of exopolysaccharide alginate and several virulence factors, and of the so-called quorum sensing regulons.

Conclusions: The study of gene regulation in P. aeruginosa is biased towards pathogenesis and virulence processes, all of which are interconnected. The network shows power-law distribution -input degree -, and we identified the top ten global regulators, six two-element cycles, the longest paths have ten steps, six biological modules and the main motifs containing three and four elements. We think this work can provide insights for the design of further studies to cover the many gaps in knowledge of this important bacterial model, and for the design of systems strategies to combat this bacterium.