Antibiotic stress induces a large amount of outer membrane protein in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

To investigate the bacterial response to antibiotic stress, we analyzed the outer membrane proteins of Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown in the presence of a sub-minimum inhibitory concentration of antibiotics. Among the antibiotics tested, fluoroquinolones and streptonigrin induced a large amount of outer membrane protein with a molecular mass of 43 kDa. This protein is most likely the stress-responsive protein, since the quinolone-resistant mutants with a higher minimum inhibitory concentration of antibiotic than the wild-type strain produced a large amount of 43-kDa protein only in the presence of sub-minimum inhibitory concentration of the mutants itself, but not that of the antibiotic-susceptible wild-type strain. The sequence of N-terminal 15 amino acids of the 43-kDa protein was identical to that of pyocin R1. However, purified pyocin R1 failed to accumulate in the outer membrane. Thus, we concluded that the 43-kDa protein (pyocin R1) is the antibiotic-stress-induced outer membrane protein.