RESEARCH ARTICLE A shotgun antisense appr s

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a highly adaptable bacterium that thrives in a broad range of ecological niches. In addition, it can infect hosts as diverse as plants, nematodes, and mammals. In humans, it is an important opportunistic pathogen in compromised individuals, such as patients with cystic fibrosis, severe burns, or impaired immunity [1,2]. P. aeruginosa is difficult to control because of its ability to develop resistance, often multiple, to all current classes of clinical antibiotics [3-5]. The discovery of novel essential genes or pathways that have not yet been targeted by clinical antibiotics can underlie the development of alternative effective antibacterials to overcome existing mechanisms of resistance. Whole-genome transposon-mutagenesis (TM) followed by identification of insertion sites is one of the most practica