Burkholderia species in sugarcane: the relationship among antifungal production, intrinsic antimicrobial resistance, and pest biocontrol

伯克霍尔德雷亚科由一类广泛分布在地球上的环境细菌组成，它们生活在不同的环境中，与植物、昆虫、动物和人类有关，还表现出极高的多药耐药性和内在的抗生素耐药性。内在耐药性意味着这些细菌可以耐受许多不同类别的抗生素的大浓度。伯克霍尔德氏菌是对人类非常有用的微生物。它们可以作为生物修复、促进植物生长和害虫生物防治的试剂，但由于担心感染和抗生素耐药性，这些有益的特性实际上仍然无法开发。事实上，一些伯克霍尔德氏菌对人类和家畜特别危险(例如类鼻疽病和腺体)，它们被单独列为生物恐怖主义病原体，而其他一些物种(例如盲肠拟芽孢杆菌和多食性伯克霍尔德氏菌)会在囊性纤维化患者中引起衰弱的、往往是可传播的肺部感染。伯克霍尔德菌(Burkholderia Spp)是巴西甘蔗可培养细菌群落的主要细菌，可以通过产生许多不同的抗真菌化合物来控制真菌和感染。我们实验室的研究表明，在广泛使用的昆虫感染模型(Galleria Mellonella)中，抗药性水平高且细菌毒力增强的菌株显示出更强的抑制甘蔗病原真菌的能力。这些观察表明，抗菌素耐药性和抗真菌生产是相互关联的。我们假设，抗菌剂耐药性和抗真菌化合物的生产是协调的，以允许伯克霍尔德氏菌在植物中存在多微生物区系的情况下生存，并防御和完成针对根际其他生物的营养。我们的建议旨在利用这一想法，找到新的方法，最大限度地发挥伯克霍尔德氏菌的有益特性，用于现场(例如，抗真菌生产)，同时减少临床上的抗菌素耐药性。我们将结合分子微生物学、基因组学和植物和昆虫中的感染模型来评估这样的假设，即抗真菌产品通过影响分子的产生来促进抗菌素耐药性的产生，这些分子可以增强细菌细胞膜的不通透性，从而增加抗生素耐药性，进而增加细菌的毒力。我们还将利用这些发现，开发新的方法来抑制抗菌素耐药性，并加强害虫的生物防治。

The Burkholderiaceae comprises a family of environmental bacteria widespread around the planet, which reside in diverse environments and in association with plants, insects, animals, and humans and also display extraordinarily high multidrug, intrinsic antibiotic resistance. Intrinsic resistance means that these bacteria can tolerate large concentrations of many different classes of antibiotics. Burkholderia are very useful microorganisms for mankind. They can serve as agents for bioremediation, plant growth promotion, and pest biocontrol, but these beneficial properties remain virtually unexploitable because of fear of infection and antibiotic resistance. Indeed, some Burkholderia species are particularly dangerous to humans and domestic animals (e.g. melioidosis and glanders) and they are singled out as bioterrorism agents, while others (e.g. B. cenocepacia and B. multivorans) cause debilitating and often transmissible lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. Burkholderia spp. is a main bacterium of the sugarcane cultivable bacterial community in Brazil, and can control fungal and infections by producing many different antifungal compounds. Research in our laboratories show that strains with high-level antimicrobial resistance and increased bacterial virulence in a widely used insect infection model (Galleria mellonella) display higher capacity to inhibit sugarcane pathogenic fungi. These observations suggest that antimicrobial resistance and antifungal production are interrelated. We hypothesise that antimicrobial resistance and antifungal compound production are coordinated to allow Burkholderia survival in the presence of a polymicrobial flora in the plants and also to defend and complete for nutrients against other organisms in the rhizosphere. Our proposal aims to exploit this idea to find new ways to maximise the beneficial properties of Burkholderia for use in the field (e.g. antifungal production) while reducing antimicrobial resistance in the clinic. We will combine molecular microbiology, genomics, and infection models in plants and insects to assess the hypothesis that antifungal production drives antimicrobial resistance by influencing the production of molecules that enhance bacterial cell envelope impermeability resulting in increased antibiotic resistance, which in turn increases bacterial virulence. We will also exploit these findings to develop novel ways to inhibit antimicrobial resistance and enhance pest biocontrol.