Assessment of the impact of biofilm related genes on the transmission potential of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains in hospital settings.

In hospital environments, biofilms formed by pathogens on openings and medical equipment allows them to persist as reservoirs and thus can freely spread to patients (Kostakioti et al., 2013). The elimination of biofilms formed by pathogenic bacteria is a big challenge as there is no consistent approach for the control of biofilm. As the use of conventional antimicrobials are failing to eradicate complex biofilms, the need for multi-targeted or combinatorial therapies is becoming essential to control the multifactorial nature of biofilm growth (Koo et al., 2017). Till date several approaches also have been used to block the early step of biofilm formation or to destroy the already formed biofilms (Sigurdsson et al., 2012). To introduce an effective therapeutics against biofilm, biofilm formers need to be extensively studied for genetic determinants that contribute to biofilm formation. As biofilm formation is dependent on various genetic and environmental factors, control strategies against biofilms formed by pathogenic bacteria should be directed on a case-by-case basis (Magdalena A et al., 2016). Among the biofilm producers, P. aeruginosa can cause serious health threat, particularly in a hospital environment. It is the one of the most frequent causes of ventilator associated pneumonia and catheter related infection (Ramírez-Estrada et al., 2016), and thus it has become one of the leading causes of nosocomial infections all over the world. The extraordinary ability of P. aeruginosa to form biofilms in different environments makes it responsible for various infections, particularly in immune-compromised persons (Rasamiravaka et al., 2015). Infections caused by this organism are often associated with high morbidity and mortality because of its intrinsic resistance to a number of drugs and its ability to gain resistance to antimicrobials from plasmids. Centre for Disease Control reported more than 51,000 clinical P. aeruginosa infections with 400 deaths each year in the USA (Awan et al., 2019). In this background, we will extensively study the P. aeruginosa strains to determine the genetic factors contributed in their biofilm forming ability.

Biofilm structures of different P. aeruginosa strains can show variability in biomass and morphology. In fact, a number of genes involved in P. aeruginosa biofilm exopolysaccharide secretion, cell to cell signaling and biofilm architecture maintenance etc (Zhang et al., 2013). Whole genome sequencing and subsequent bioinformatics analyses of biofilm related genes and proteins can be useful to assess the sequence and structural variabilities that may affect biofilm forming abilities of different P. aeruginosa strains. Determining the level of expression of biofilm related genes in related bacterial strains can also provide valuable information about the correlation between the genes and biofilm forming ability. Given that, this study focused on analyzing the sequence variation, protein structure and expression pattern of biofilm associated genes in clinical P. aeruginosa isolates found in Bangladesh. The findings of the study can provide more insights into the biofilm forming ability of the clinical isolates, understanding molecular basis of the variable biofilm forming abilities of P. aeruginosa and can support to find effective therapeutics to block the early steps involved in biofilm formation.