The large conjugative plasmid pAB3 integrates into the chromosome of Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 17978

Authors

Neil, M., Langridge, G., Evans, B. A.

Abstract

ATCC 17978 is one of the most utilised lab strains of Acinetobacter baumannii. Current literature suggests ATCC 17978 can have either a sulfamethoxazole-resistant phenotype or have the type VI secretion system (T6SS) switched on depending on the presence/absence of the large conjugative plasmid pAB3, which encodes the antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) sul2 and T6SS repressors tetR1/tetR2. Here, we show that pAB3 integrates into the ATCC 17978 chromosome, which enables a large inversion resulting in the chromosomal arrangement labelled GS2.24 by Socru. This integration has no transcriptional impact on nearby genes or tetR1/tetR2. We find several instances were a portion of integrated pAB3 containing tetR2 is lost but the rest of the sequence, including sul2, is maintained, suggesting pAB3 integration may serve to make further rearrangements more tractable, enabling a putative T6SS+ sulfamethoxazole-resistant phenotype.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 01 Nov 2026.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this preprint? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.