Novel technologies for the diagnosis of urinary tract infections.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) impose a substantial burden on patient quality of life and urine testing accounts for the majority of workload in many clinical microbiology laboratories. Traditional UTI diagnosis relies on symptoms, urinalysis, and culture which are interpreted based on historical guidelines. This approach, while foundational, presents limitations, particularly in complex cases.

Mapping niche-specific two-component system requirements in uropathogenic .

Sensory systems allow pathogens to differentiate between different niches and respond to stimuli within them. A major mechanism through which bacteria sense and respond to stimuli in their surroundings is two-component systems (TCSs). TCSs allow for the detection of multiple stimuli to lead to a highly controlled and rapid change in gene expression.

Raising the alarm: fosfomycin resistance associated with non-susceptible inner colonies imparts no fitness cost to the primary bacterial uropathogen.

While fosfomycin resistance is rare, the observation of non-susceptible subpopulations among clinical isolates is a common phenomenon during antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) in American and European clinical labs. Previous evidence suggests that mutations eliciting this phenotype are of high biological cost to the pathogen during infection, leading to current recommendations of neglecting non-susceptible colonies during AST. Here, we report that the most common route to fosfomycin resistance, as well as novel routes described in this work, does not impair virulence in uropathogenic , the major cause of urinary tract infections, suggesting a re-evaluation of current susceptibility guidelines is warranted.

The QseB response regulator imparts tolerance to positively charged antibiotics by controlling metabolism and minor changes to LPS.

The modification of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in and spp. is primarily controlled by the two-component system PmrAB. LPS modification allows bacteria to avoid killing by positively charged antibiotics like polymyxin B (PMB).

Mapping Niche-specific Two-Component System Requirements in Uropathogenic .

Sensory systems allow pathogens to differentiate between different niches and respond to stimuli within them. A major mechanism through which bacteria sense and respond to stimuli in their surroundings is two-component systems (TCSs). TCSs allow for the detection of multiple stimuli to lead to a highly controlled and rapid change in gene expression.

The QseB response regulator imparts tolerance to positively charged antibiotics by controlling metabolism and minor changes to LPS.

Unlabelled: The modification of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in and . is primarily controlled by the two-component system PmrAB. LPS modification allows bacteria to avoid killing by positively charged antibiotics like polymyxin B.

The Histidine Residue of QseC Is Required for Canonical Signaling between QseB and PmrB in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli.

Two-component systems are prototypically comprised of a histidine kinase (sensor) and a response regulator (responder). The sensor kinases autophosphorylate at a conserved histidine residue, acting as a phosphodonor for subsequent phosphotransfer to and activation of a cognate response regulator. In rare cases, the histidine residue is also essential for response regulator dephosphorylation via a reverse-phosphotransfer reaction.