The Mla Pathway Plays an Essential Role in the Intrinsic Resistance of Burkholderia cepacia Complex Species to Antimicrobials and Host Innate Components.

Antibiotic resistance is a threat to our modern society, and new strategies leading to the identification of new molecules or targets to combat multidrug-resistant pathogens are needed. Species of the genus , including the complex (Bcc), , and , can be highly pathogenic and are intrinsically resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics. Bcc species are nonetheless sensitive to extracellular products released by in interspecies competition. We screened for transposon mutants with increased sensitivity to spent medium and identified multiple mutants in genes sharing homology with the Mla pathway. Insertional mutants in representative genes of the Bcc Mla pathway had a compromised cell membrane and were more sensitive to various extracellular stresses, including antibiotics and human serum. More precisely, mutants in the Bcc species and were more susceptible to Gram-positive antibiotics (i.e., macrolides and rifampin), fluoroquinolones, tetracyclines, and chloramphenicol. Genetic complementation of insertional mutants restored cell permeability and resistance to Gram-positive antibiotics. Importantly, Bcc mutants were not universally weaker strains since their susceptibilities to other classes of antibiotics were unaffected. Although cell permeability of homologous mutants in or was also impaired, they were not more sensitive to Gram-positive antibiotics or other antimicrobials as was observed in Bcc mutants. Together, the data suggest that the Mla pathway in may play a different biological role, which could potentially represent a -specific drug target in combination therapy with antibiotic adjuvants. The outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria acts as an effective barrier against toxic compounds, and therefore compromising this structure could increase sensitivity to currently available antibiotics. In this study, we show that the Mla pathway, a system involved in maintaining the integrity of the outer membrane, is genetically and functionally different in complex species compared to that in other proteobacteria. Mutants in genes of or were sensitive to Gram-positive antibiotics, while this effect was not observed in or The Mla pathway in species may represent an ideal genus-specific target to address their intrinsic antimicrobial resistances.