Differences in strategies to combat osmotic stress in Burkholderia cenocepacia elucidated by NMR-based metabolic profiling

Aims: To investigate mechanisms of osmotic tolerance in Burkholderia cenocepacia, a member of the B. cepacia complex (Bcc) of closely related strains, which is of clinical as well as environmental importance. Methods and Results: We employed NMR-based metabolic profiling (metabolomics) to elucidate the metabolic consequences of high osmotic stress for five isolates of B. cenocepacia. The strains differed significantly in their levels of osmotic stress tolerance, and we identified three different sets of metabolic responses with the strains least impacted by osmotic stress exhibiting higher levels of the osmo-protective metabolites glycine-betaine and/or trehalose. Strains either increased concentrations or had constitutively high levels of these metabolites. Conclusions: Even within the small set of B. cenocepacia isolates, there was a surprising degree of variability in the metabolic responses to osmotic stress. Significance and impact of the study: The metabolic responses, and hence osmotic stress tolerance, vary between different B. cenocepacia isolates. This study provides a first look into the potentially highly diverse physiology of closely related strains of one species of the Bcc and illustrates that physiological or clinically relevant phenotypes are unlikely to be inferable from genetic relatedness within this species group.