Opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses a variety of virulence factors to cause acute and chronic infections. We previously found that alternate DNA polymerase gene polB inhibits P. aeruginosa pyocyanin production. We investigated whether polB also affects T3SS expression. polB overexpression significantly reduced T3SS transcription and repressed translation of the master T3SS regulator ExsA, while not affecting exsA mRNA transcript abundance. Further, polB does not act through previously described genetic pathways that post-transcriptionally regulate ExsA. Our results show a novel T3SS regulatory component which may lead to development of future drugs to target this mechanism.

机会性病原体铜绿假单胞菌利用多种毒力因子引起急性和慢性感染。我们之前发现替代 DNA 聚合酶基因polB抑制P。绿脓杆菌绿脓素的产生。我们调查了polB是否也影响 T3SS 表达。polB过表达显着降低了 T3SS 转录并抑制了主 T3SS 调节因子 ExsA 的翻译，而不影响exsA mRNA 转录本丰度。此外，polB不通过先前描述的转录后调节 ExsA 的遗传途径起作用。我们的研究结果显示了一种新的 T3SS 调节成分，它可能会导致未来针对这种机制的药物的开发。