Construction and characterization of a highly redundant Pseudomonas aeruginosa genomic library prepared from 12 clinical isolates: application to studies of gene distribution among populations.

Objective: To create, array, and characterize a pooled, high-coverage, genomic library composed of multiple biofilm-forming clinical strains of the opportunistic pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). Twelve strains were obtained from patients with otorrhea, otitis media, and cystic fibrosis as a resource for investigating: difference in the transcriptomes of planktonic and biofilm envirovars; the size of the PA supragenome and determining the number of virulence genes available at the population level; and the distributed genome hypothesis.

Methods: High molecular weight genomic DNAs from 12 clinical PA strains were individually hydrodynamically sheared to produce mean fragment sizes of approximately 1.