High definition lipidomics of P. aeruginosa- impact of metabolic heterogeneity on bacterial physiology

• Main Author: Lee, Julianne Siwen
• Other Authors: Guan Xue Li
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72469
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is a common gram negative bacterium known to form biofilms, which causes chronic opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients. While many research focus on its biofilm formation and its genome sequence, little is known about the exact lipidome of P. aeruginosa and how its lipid organization affects its physiology and virulence. This study aims to compare two different lipid extraction protocols and characterize the phospholipidome of the laboratory strain P. aeruginosa PA01 at exponential and stationary phases. 8 major phospholipid classes were identified based on liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis, which is an improvement of 22% lipid coverage as compared to existing reports. In addition, a preliminary analysis of the glycerophospholipids at stationary and exponential phases of P. aeruginosa strain PA01 was conducted, highlighting the changing metabolism during its growth. These results contribute toward understanding the metabolic repertoire in this bacterial pathogen and highlight possible clinical applications such as biomarker screening.