LipidA-IDER to Explore the Global Lipid A Repertoire of Drug-Resistant Gram-Negative Bacteria

Anal Chem. 2023 Jan 17;95(2):602-611. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c03566. Epub 2023 Jan 4.

Abstract

With the global emergence of drug-resistant bacteria causing difficult-to-treat infections, there is an urgent need for a tool to facilitate studies on key virulence and antimicrobial resistant factors. Mass spectrometry (MS) has contributed substantially to the elucidation of the structure-function relationships of lipid A, the endotoxic component of lipopolysaccharide which also serves as an important protective barrier against antimicrobials. Here, we present LipidA-IDER, an automated structure annotation tool for system-level scale identification of lipid A from high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (MS2) data. LipidA-IDER was validated against previously reported structures of lipid A in the reference bacteria, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Using MS2 data of variable quality, we demonstrated LipidA-IDER annotated lipid A with a performance of 71.2% specificity and 70.9% sensitivity, offering greater accuracy than existing lipidomics software. The organism-independent workflow was further applied to a panel of six bacterial species: E. coli and Gram-negative members of ESKAPE pathogens. A comprehensive atlas comprising 188 distinct lipid A species, including remodeling intermediates, was generated and can be integrated with software including MS-DIAL and Metabokit for identification and semiquantitation. Systematic comparison of a pair of polymyxin-sensitive and polymyxin-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from a human patient unraveled multiple key lipid A structural features of polymyxin resistance within a single analysis. Probing the lipid A landscape of bacteria using LipidA-IDER thus holds immense potential for advancing our understanding of the vast diversity and structural complexity of a key lipid virulence and antimicrobial-resistant factor. LipidA-IDER is freely available at https://github.com/Systems-Biology-Of-Lipid-Metabolism-Lab/LipidA-IDER.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Acinetobacter baumannii*
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
  • Anti-Infective Agents*
  • Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial
  • Escherichia coli
  • Gram-Negative Bacteria
  • Humans
  • Lipid A
  • Microbial Sensitivity Tests
  • Polymyxins

Substances

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents
  • Lipid A
  • Polymyxins
  • Anti-Infective Agents