Sub-Inhibitory Concentrations of SOS-Response Inducing Antibiotics Stimulate Integrase Expression and Excision of Pathogenicity Islands in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Strain 536

Abstract Urinary tract infections are one of the most common bacterial infections and a major public health problem. The predominant causative agents are uropathogenic Escherichia coli. These strains differ from commensal E. coli by the presence of additional horizontally acquired chromosomal material, so-called pathogenicity islands, which encode traits that promote efficient bacterial colonization of the urinary tract. Uropathogenic model strain E. coli 536 possesses six archetypal pathogenicity islands. Bacteriophage-like integrases encoded by each pathogenicity island contribute to island instability. To learn more about the stability of these six islands and factors controlling their stability we constructed two chromosomal reporter systems for the measurement of island loss, as well as for the measurement of the promoter activity of the six island-associated integrase genes at the population level. We used these reporter gene modules to analyze the role of SOS response in island instability. Tests with subinhibitory concentrations of different antibiotics, including many drugs commonly used for the treatment of urinary tract infection, indicated that only SOS response-inducing antibiotics led to an increased loss of islands which was always associated with an increase in the bacterial subpopulations showing high integrase promoter activity. This suggests that island excision correlates with the expression of the cognate integrase. Our reporter modules are valuable tools to investigate the impact of various growth conditions on genome plasticity. Furthermore, a better understanding of the conditions, which affect bacterial integrase expression may open ways to specifically manipulate the genome content of bacterial pathogens by increasing pathogenicity island deletion rates in infecting or colonizing bacteria, thus leading to the attenuation of bacterial pathogens.