Fig. 6: FprB is a promising synergistic target of gallium therapy in P. aeruginosa.

a Genome analysis of 981 P. aeruginosa strains from NCBI shows the presence of the fprB gene in most strains except GCA_00473745.3 with a single copy. b Genomic context analysis of the fprB gene in 981 P. aeruginosa strains reveals consistent gene order across different genomes. c Biofilm formation analysis in P. aeruginosa static cultures incubated 24-h incubation at 37 °C with or without Ga(NO₃)₃. Data are presented as mean ± SD from triplicates. d, e Survival of mice infected with different strains and treated with gallium. BALB/c mice were intranasally administrated with P. aeruginosa (2.5 × 10⁷ c.f.u.). At 3 h.p.i., mice were treated with 50 µL of PBS or 250 mM Ga(NO₃)₃ via intraperitoneal injections. (n = 6 per group). Created in BioRender. Liu, X. (2025) https://BioRender.com/kcvjnbt. f, g Bacterial load in lungs of infected mice. BALB/c mice (female, 6–8 weeks) were intranasally administrated with P. aeruginosa (1.0 × 10⁷ c.f.u.). At 3 h.p.i., mice were treated with 50 µL of PBS or 250 mM Ga(NO₃)₃ via intraperitoneal injections. At 27 h.p.i., mice were sacrificed to assess the bacteria load in the lung. Created in BioRender. Liu, X. (2025) https://BioRender.com/kcvjnbt. g Bars represent mean ± SD from six biologically independent samples per group (n = 6). Individual data points are shown. Statistical analysis was performed by default two-sided Gehan-Breslow-Wilcoxon test (e) or Two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple-comparison test (c, g). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.