{"doi":"10.1128/jb.00361-23","title":"Characterization of the Entner-Doudoroff pathway in <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> catheter-associated urinary tract infections","abstract":"ABSTRACT Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic nosocomial pathogen responsible for a subset of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI). In a murine model of P. aeruginosa CAUTI, we previously demonstrated that urea within urine suppresses quorum sensing and induces the Entner-Doudoroff (E-D) pathway. The E-D pathway consists of the genes zwf , pgl , edd , and eda . Zwf and Pgl convert glucose-6-phosphate into 6-phosphogluconate. Edd hydrolyzes 6-phosphogluconate to 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate (KDPG). Finally, Eda cleaves KDPG to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and pyruvate, which enters the citric acid cycle. Here, we generated in-frame E-D mutants in the strain PA14 and assessed their growth phenotypes on chemically defined and complex media. These E-D mutants have a growth defect when grown on glucose or gluconate as the sole carbon source, which is similar to results previously reported for PAO1 mutants lacking E-D genes. RNA-sequencing following short exposure to urine revealed minimal gene regulation differences compared to the wild type. In a murine CAUTI model, virulence testing of E-D mutants revealed that two mutants lacking zwf and pgl showed minor fitness defects. Infection with the ∆ pgl strain exhibited a 20% increase in host survival, and the ∆ zwf strain displayed decreased colonization of the catheter and kidneys. Consequently, our findings suggest that the E-D pathway in P. aeruginosa is dispensable in this model of CAUTI. IMPORTANCE Prior studies have shown that the Entner-Doudoroff pathway is up-regulated when Pseudomonas aeruginosa is grown in urine. Pseudomonads use the Entner-Doudoroff (E-D) pathway to metabolize glucose instead of glycolysis, which led us to ask whether this pathway is required for urinary tract infection. Here, single-deletion mutants of each gene in the pathway were tested for growth on chemically defined media with single-carbon sources as well as complex media. The effect of each mutant on global gene expression in laboratory media and urine was characterized. The virulence of these mutants in a murine model of catheter-associated urinary tract infection revealed that these mutants had similar levels of colonization indicating that glucose is not the primary carbon source utilized in the urinary tract.","journal":"Journal of Bacteriology","year":2023,"id":345390,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":13,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9633,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":252574,"name":"Solomon A. Mekonnen","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1085355,"name":"Cherisse L. Hall","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1084867,"name":"Stephanie Cole","orcid":"0000-0003-0863-1141","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":525609,"name":"Jared A. Carter","orcid":"0000-0002-9697-6037","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351254,"name":"Ashton T. Belew","orcid":"0000-0001-6725-5081","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351255,"name":"Najib M. El-Sayed","orcid":"0000-0001-7970-3312","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":392572,"name":"Vincent T. Lee","orcid":"0000-0002-3593-0318","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1084866,"name":"Nour El Husseini","orcid":"0000-0002-9509-8156","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:11:39.484741Z","pmid":"38047680","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}