AUTHOR=Norsigian Charles J. , Kavvas Erol , Seif Yara , Palsson Bernhard O. , Monk Jonathan M. 

TITLE=iCN718, an Updated and Improved Genome-Scale Metabolic Network Reconstruction of Acinetobacter baumannii AYE

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2018.00121

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2018.00121

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p><italic>Acinetobacter baumannii</italic> has become an urgent clinical threat due to the recent emergence of multi-drug resistant strains. There is thus a significant need to discover new therapeutic targets in this organism. One means for doing so is through the use of high-quality genome-scale reconstructions. Well-curated and accurate genome-scale models (GEMs) of <italic>A. baumannii</italic> would be useful for improving treatment options. We present an updated and improved genome-scale reconstruction of <italic>A. baumannii</italic> AYE, named iCN718, that improves and standardizes previous <italic>A. baumannii</italic> AYE reconstructions. iCN718 has 80% accuracy for predicting gene essentiality data and additionally can predict large-scale phenotypic data with as much as 89% accuracy, a new capability for an <italic>A. baumannii</italic> reconstruction. We further demonstrate that iCN718 can be used to analyze conserved metabolic functions in the A. baumannii core genome and to build strain-specific GEMs of 74 other <italic>A. baumannii</italic> strains from genome sequence alone. iCN718 will serve as a resource to integrate and synthesize new experimental data being generated for this urgent threat pathogen.</p>