{"doi":"10.1128/mbio.02338-20","title":"Copy Number of an Integron-Encoded Antibiotic Resistance Locus Regulates a Virulence and Opacity Switch in Acinetobacter baumannii AB5075","abstract":"Acinetobacter baumannii remains a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Widespread multidrug resistance in this species has prompted the WHO to name carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii as its top priority for research and development of new antibiotics. Many strains of A. baumannii undergo a high-frequency virulence switch, which is an attractive target for new therapeutics targeting this pathogen. This study reports a novel mechanism controlling the frequency of switching in strain AB5075. The rate of switching from the virulent opaque (VIR-O) to the avirulent translucent (AV-T) variant is positively influenced by the copy number of an antibiotic resistance locus encoded on a plasmid-borne composite integron. Our data suggest that this locus encodes a small RNA that regulates opacity switching. Low-switching opaque variants, which harbor a single copy of this locus, also exhibit decreased virulence. This study increases our understanding of this critical phenotypic switch, while also identifying potential targets for virulence-based A. baumannii treatments.","journal":"mBio","year":2020,"id":98073,"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":32,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9491,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":485595,"name":"Chui Yoke Chin","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":44709,"name":"David S. Weiss","orcid":"0000-0003-0980-7866","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272343,"name":"Philip N. Rather","orcid":"0000-0001-9674-6250","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":484527,"name":"Sarah E. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0003-2064-8165","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":62,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:36:34.157932Z","pmid":"33024041","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":[]}