State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2022 Nov 15;66(11):e0089022. doi: 10.1128/aac.00890-22. Epub 2022 Oct 12.
There is an urgent need for efficient tools for genetic manipulation to assess plasmid function in clinical drug-resistant bacterial strains. To address this need, we developed an all-in-one CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) system that easily inhibited the gene expression of a natural multidrug-resistant plasmid in an sequence type 23 (ST23) Klebsiella pneumoniae isolate. We established an integrative CRISPRi system plasmid, pdCas9gRNA, harboring a gene and a single guide RNA (sgRNA) unit under the control of anhydrotetracycline-induced and J23119 promoters, respectively, using a one-step cloning method. This system can repress the single resistance gene , with a >1,000-fold reduction in the meropenem MIC, or simultaneously silence the resistance genes and , with a 16-fold and 8-fold respective reduction in the meropenem and aztreonam MIC on a large natural multidrug-resistant pNK01067-NDM-1 plasmid in an ST23 K. pneumoniae isolate. Furthermore, an sgRNA targeting the promoter region can silence the entire operon, confirming the existence of the operon. We also used this tool to knock down the multicopy resistance gene in pathogenic Escherichia coli, increasing the susceptibility to meropenem. In a word, the all-in-one CRISPRi system can be used for efficient interrogation of indigenous plasmid-borne gene functions, providing a rapid, easy genetic manipulation tool for clinical K. pneumoniae isolates.
目前迫切需要有效的基因操作工具来评估临床耐药细菌菌株中质粒的功能。为了满足这一需求,我们开发了一种即插即用的 CRISPR 干扰(CRISPRi)系统,该系统可轻松抑制 23 型(ST23)肺炎克雷伯菌分离株中天然多药耐药质粒的基因表达。我们使用一步克隆法建立了一个整合的 CRISPRi 系统质粒 pdCas9gRNA,该质粒包含一个基因和一个单指导 RNA(sgRNA)单元,分别受脱水四环素诱导和 J23119 启动子的控制。该系统可以抑制单个耐药基因 ,使美罗培南 MIC 降低 1000 倍以上,或同时沉默耐药基因 和 ,使 ST23 肺炎克雷伯菌分离株中天然多药耐药 pNK01067-NDM-1 质粒的美罗培南和氨曲南 MIC 分别降低 16 倍和 8 倍。此外,靶向 启动子区域的 sgRNA 可沉默整个 操纵子,证实了操纵子的存在。我们还使用该工具敲低了致病性大肠杆菌中的多拷贝耐药基因 ,增加了对美罗培南的敏感性。总之,这种即插即用的 CRISPRi 系统可用于高效探究本土质粒携带基因的功能,为临床肺炎克雷伯菌分离株提供了一种快速、简便的遗传操作工具。