Document Type
Other
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
Antibiotic resistance has become a major global health concern as it decreases antibiotic efficacy and continues to emerge each year. A major driving force behind antibiotic resistance is a small subset of the bacterial population (known as persisters) that enter a metabolically repressed state in response to antibiotics, allowing them to survive long-term antibiotic treatments. After the antibiotic treatment period is over persisters can reestablish and reoccur the infection. However, the central mechanism behind persister formation remains debated and unclear. Our previous transcriptomic analysis of the persister population of Escherichia coli Dh5αZ1 showed that several genes are upregulated during persister state, and we hypothesize that these genes allow cells to go into persister state in response to antibiotics. In this study, we focused on understanding the role of an uncharacterized gene, yjbE, which is upregulated in persister state. We used two different mutation approaches, (1) yjbE gene is knocked out using CRISPR-Cas9 homologous recombination system and (2) yjbE gene is cloned under Plac/ara promoter to observe its effect on the persister population. Our result showed that ΔyjbE mutants have ~14-fold decreased persister percentage in comparison to control strain under Ampicillin treatment at 3h and overexpression of yjbE gene leads to cessation of growth. This result confirms that the yjbE gene plays an important role in the formation of persister cells and further studies need to be done to determine how the yjbE gene helps in persister formation and identify ways to counteract its function.
Publisher
South Dakota State University
Rights
Copyright © 2024 Isaac Kovash
Recommended Citation
Kovash, Isaac, "Exploring the role of uncharacterized gene yjbE in bacterial persistence" (2024). Schultz-Werth Award Papers. 58.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/schultz-werth/58
