The Campylobacter jejuni transcriptional regulator CosR plays a role in the oxidative and aerobic stress response and is important for bacterial survival in vivo

ABSTRACT: Campylobacter jejuni is the leading bacterial cause of human gastroenteritis worldwide. Despite stringent microaerobic growth requirements, C. jejuni is ubiquitous in the aerobic environment. C. jejuni must possess finely tuned regulatory systems to sense and adapt to external stimuli such as oxidative and aerobic (O2) stress. Re-annotation of the C. jejuni NCTC11168 genome sequence identified Cj1556 (originally annotated as a hypothetical protein) as a MarR family transcriptional regulator and further bioinformatic analysis indicated a role in regulating the oxidative stress response. A C. jejuni 11168H Cj1556 mutant exhibited increased sensitivity to oxidative and aerobic stress, decreased ability for intracellular survival in both Caco-2 human intestinal epithelial cells and J774A.1 mouse macrophages and a reduction in virulence in the Galleria mellonella infection model. Microarray analysis of gene expression changes in the Cj1556 mutant compared to the wild-type strain indicated negative autoregulation of Cj1556 expression and down-regulation of genes associated with oxidative and aerobic stress responses, such as katA, perR and hspR. cprS, which encodes a sensor kinase involved in the regulation of biofilm formation, was also up-regulated in the Cj1556 mutant and subsequent studies showed that the Cj1556 mutant had a reduced ability to form biofilms. Protein interaction studies confirmed the binding of recombinant Cj1556 to a region upstream of Cj1556. This study has identified a novel C. jejuni transcriptional regulator Cj1556 that is involved in oxidative and aerobic stress responses and is important for the survival of C. jejuni in the natural environment and in vivo. This newly identified regulator was designated CosR (Campylobacter oxidative stress Regulator). Data is also available from BuG@Sbase

ORGANISM(S): Campylobacter jejuni

SUBMITTER: Ozan Gundogdu 

PROVIDER: E-BUGS-119 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress