Response to photo-oxidative stress of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 mutants impaired in different functions

Clinicians often have to deal with infections that are difficult to control because they are caused by superbugs resistant to many antibiotics. Alternatives to antibiotic treatment include antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT). The photodynamic process causes bacterial death, inducing oxidative stress through the photoactivation of photosensitizer molecules in the presence of oxygen. No PDT-resistant bacteria have been selected to date, thus the response to photo-oxidative stress in non-phototrophic bacteria needs further investigation. The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in particular, has been shown to be more tolerant to PDT than other micro-organisms. In order to find any genetic determinants involved in PDT-tolerance, a panel of transposon mutants of P. aeruginosa PAO1 involved in the quorum sensing signalling system and membrane cytoplasmic transport were photoinactivated as part of this study. Two pseudomonas quinolone signalling (PQS) knock-out mutants, pqsH^- and pqsC^-, were as PDT-sensitive as the PAO1 wild-type strains. Two PQS hyperproducer variants, pqsA^- and rsaL^-, were shown to be more tolerant to photo-oxidative stress than the wild-type strain. In the pqsA^- mutant, the hyperpigmentation due to the presence of phenazines could protect cells against PDT stress, while in rsaL^- no pigmentation was detectable. Furthermore, a mutant impaired in an ATP-binding cassette transport involved in maintaining the asymmetry of the outer membrane was significantly more tolerant to photo-oxidative stress than the wild-type strain. These observations support the involvement of quorum sensing and the importance of the bacterial cell envelope when dealing with photo-oxidative stress induced by photodynamic treatment.