Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses to study the key role by which induces to form suspended aggregates.

can survive in a wide range of aqueous environments, including food processing areas, and is harmful to humans. It can induce to form suspended aggregates, resulting from the co-aggregation of two bacteria, which allows for more persistent survival and increases the risk of contamination. In our study, different groups of aggregates were analyzed and compared using Illumina RNA sequencing technology. These included under normal and barren nutrient conditions and in the presence or absence of as a way to screen for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the process of aggregate formation. In addition, sterile supernatants of were analyzed under different nutrient conditions using metabolomics to investigate the effect of nutrient-poor conditions on metabolite production by . We also undertook a combined analysis of transcriptome and metabolome data to further investigate the induction effect of on in a barren environment. The results of the functional annotation analysis on the surface of DEGs and qPCR showed that under nutrient-poor conditions, the , and genes of were significantly upregulated in biosynthetic processes such as carbon metabolism, metabolic pathways, and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, with LogFC reaching 4.39, 3.96, and 3.95 respectively. In contrast, the LogFC of , and in oxidative phosphorylation and ribosomal pathways reached 3.74, 3.87, and 4.25, respectively. Thirty-one key components were identified while screening for differential metabolites, which mainly included amino acids and their metabolites, enriched to the pathways of biosynthesis of amino acids, phenylalanine metabolism, and methionine metabolism. Of these, aminomalonic acid and Proximicin B were the special components of that were metabolized under nutrient-poor conditions.