Understanding the role of CsrA in Acinetobacter baumannii survival and infection

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Abstract Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen that causes serious infections which are very difficult to treat due to multidrug resistance. The majority of these infections occur in hospitalized, critically ill individuals, and spread through the hospital environment is a major concern for this pathogen. We developed a screen to identify genes that support the survival of A. baumannii on dry surfaces, since this ability likely facilitates A. baumannii’s spread. One of the genes we identified encodes the regulatory protein CsrA. This regulator is important for controlling metabolism and virulence in other bacterial species, and as we began to study the function of CsrA in A. baumannii, we found that it also appeared to be critical for host-associated growth. This has provided a great opportunity to discover novel genes and determinants involved in A. baumannii virulence and spread by further investigating the regulatory function of CsrA in this organism. The goals of this proposal are: 1) To determine the specific functions needed for host-associated growth by examining role of CsrA in controlling A. baumannii metabolism; and 2) To identify direct regulatory targets of CsrA in order to understand how it influences A. baumannii growth and environmental survival. The long-term objectives of this research are to identify potential targets for the development of new treatments for A. baumannii infections, and to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms through which A. baumannii persists in the nosocomial environment with the goal of developing new interventions to curb its spread in hospitals.