(1)H NMR-based metabolite profiling of planktonic and biofilm cells in Acinetobacter baumannii 1656-2

PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e57730. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057730. Epub 2013 Mar 6.

Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is an aerobic and gram-negative pathogenic bacterium that is resistant to most antibiotics. Recently, A. baumannii 1656-2 exhibited the ability to form biofilms under clinical conditions. In this study, global metabolite profiling of both planktonic and biofilm forms of A. baumannii 1656-2 was performed using high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and multivariate statistical analysis to investigate the metabolic patterns leading to biofilm formation. Principal components analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) score plots showed a distinct separation between planktonic and biofilm cells. Metabolites including acetates, pyruvate, succinate, UDP-glucose, AMP, glutamate, and lysine were increasingly involved in the energy metabolism of biofilm formation. In particular, the ratio of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) to D-glucosamine (GlcNH2) was significantly higher during biofilm formation than under the planktonic condition. This study demonstrates that NMR-based global metabolite profiling of bacterial cells can provide valuable insight into the metabolic changes in multidrug resistant and biofilm-forming bacteria such as A. baumannii 1656-2.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acinetobacter baumannii / cytology*
  • Acinetobacter baumannii / growth & development
  • Acinetobacter baumannii / metabolism*
  • Biofilms* / growth & development
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Least-Squares Analysis
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
  • Metabolomics / methods*
  • Multivariate Analysis
  • Plankton / cytology
  • Plankton / metabolism*
  • Principal Component Analysis

Grants and funding

This study was supported by National Research Foundation Grants, no. 2010-0019394 (to G.S.H) and no.2010-0007203 (to J.K.) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Korea Basic Science Institute (T32409). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.