Chaudhuri RR, Allen AG, Owen PJ, Shalom G, Stone K, Harrison M, Burgis TA, Lockyer M, Garcia-Lara J, Foster SJ, Pleasance SJ, Peters SE, Maskell DJ, Charles IG. Comprehensive identification of essential Staphylococcus aureus genes using Transposon-Mediated Differential Hybridisation (TMDH).
BMC Genomics 2009;
10:291. [PMID:
19570206 PMCID:
PMC2721850 DOI:
10.1186/1471-2164-10-291]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 220] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2009] [Accepted: 07/01/2009] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
In recent years there has been an increasing problem with Staphylococcus aureus strains that are resistant to treatment with existing antibiotics. An important starting point for the development of new antimicrobial drugs is the identification of "essential" genes that are important for bacterial survival and growth.
Results
We have developed a robust microarray and PCR-based method, Transposon-Mediated Differential Hybridisation (TMDH), that uses novel bioinformatics to identify transposon inserts in genome-wide libraries. Following a microarray-based screen, genes lacking transposon inserts are re-tested using a PCR and sequencing-based approach. We carried out a TMDH analysis of the S. aureus genome using a large random mariner transposon library of around a million mutants, and identified a total of 351 S. aureus genes important for survival and growth in culture. A comparison with the essential gene list experimentally derived for Bacillus subtilis highlighted interesting differences in both pathways and individual genes.
Conclusion
We have determined the first comprehensive list of S. aureus essential genes. This should act as a useful starting point for the identification of potential targets for novel antimicrobial compounds. The TMDH methodology we have developed is generic and could be applied to identify essential genes in other bacterial pathogens.
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