Study on Genes Involved in Twitching Motility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa
铜绿假单胞菌蹭行运动相关基因的研究

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic pathogen of humans. Twitching motility mediated by type IV pili plays an important role in the pathogenesis of this organism. In this paper, Mu transposition recombination technique was utilized to study a cluster of genes required for twitching motility of P. aeruginosa. Mu DNA transposition complexes were formed in vitro, and then were electroporated into P. aeruginosa. The complexes were integrated into bacterial genomes randomly resulting in gene inactivation and phenotypical change. Eight mutants deficient in twitching motility were obtained. Gene cloning and sequencing of the flanking region of the inserted artificial Mu transposon revealed that five genes cause loss of twitching motility. Among them, the function of gene pilV, pilQ and algR has been previously experimentally demonstrated in P. aeruginosa. They are required for biogenesis and function of type IV pili. Gene pilL (PA0413) encodes a probable component of a chemotactic signal transduction system. Its function was predicted according to its conserved amino acid motif. This result suggests that PA0413 is involved in regulation of twitching motility. PA1821 is also a class 3 gene, its putative product is enoyl-CoA hydratase/isomerase.