RT Journal Article
T1 Deletion of pcnB affects antibiotic susceptibility in resistant Escherichia coli by reducing copy number of ColE1-family plasmids
A1 Wellner, Sandra marina
A1 Fei, Xiao
A1 Fresno Herrero, Ana
A1 Olsen, John Elmerdahl
AB Plasmids play a major role in the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria. Plasmid copy number (PCN) is often tightly regulated. In plasmids of the ColE1-type, this regulation happens by a negative feedback mechanism using an antisense RNA. Here, we employed a sequencing-based method for determining PCN to demonstrate that copy number of different ColE1-family plasmids harboring antibiotic resistance genes increases during antibiotic treatment. Further, we show that deletion of the gene pcnB reduces the copy number of ColE1-family plasmids in E. coli MG1655, which in turn results in a reduced resistance to antimicrobials of the classes aminoglycosides, β-lactams and tetracyclines. In the absence of antibiotic selection, the deletion of pcnB also decreased the number of ColE1-type plasmids in a bacterial population. Hence, PcnB, which polyadenylates RNA, marking it for decay, represents a potential drug and helper-drug target that could be used to reduce PCN to re-sensitize bacteria with multi-copy-number resistance-plasmids to treatment with different antimicrobials.
PB Nature Research
YR 2025
FD 2025-03-11
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46564
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46564
LA eng
NO Wellner, S. M., Fei, X., Herrero-Fresno, A., & Olsen, J. E. (2025). Deletion of pcnB affects antibiotic susceptibility in resistant Escherichia coli by reducing copy number of ColE1-family plasmids. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/S41598-025-92308-X
NO This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number 956154. Ana Herrero-Fresno acknowledges the “Ministerio de Universidades”, Spain for her grant (BG22/00150–Beatriz Galindo program).
DS Minerva
RD 23 may 2026