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Interaction of the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein and the general stress response regulator RpoS at Vibrio cholerae promoters that regulate motility and hemagglutinin/protease expression.

ABSTRACT: The bacterium Vibrio cholerae colonizes the human small intestine and secretes cholera toxin (CT) to cause the rice-watery diarrhea characteristic of this illness. The ability of this pathogen to colonize the small bowel, express CT, and return to the aquatic environment is controlled by a complex network of regulatory proteins. Two global regulators that participate in this process are the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) and the general stress response regulator RpoS. In this study, we address the role of RpoS and H-NS in the coordinate regulation of motility and hemagglutinin (HA)/protease expression. In addition to initiating transcription of hapA encoding HA/protease, RpoS enhanced flrA and rpoN transcription to increase motility. In contrast, H-NS was found to bind to the flrA, rpoN, and hapA promoters and represses their expression. The strength of H-NS repression at the above-mentioned promoters was weaker for hapA, which exhibited the strongest RpoS dependency, suggesting that transcription initiation by RNA polymerase containing ?(S) could be more resistant to H-NS repression. Occupancy of the flrA and hapA promoters by H-NS was demonstrated by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP). We show that the expression of RpoS in the stationary phase significantly diminished H-NS promoter occupancy. Furthermore, RpoS enhanced the transcription of integration host factor (IHF), which positively affected the expression of flrA and rpoN by diminishing the occupancy of H-NS at these promoters. Altogether, we propose a model for RpoS regulation of motility gene expression that involves (i) attenuation of H-NS repression by IHF and (ii) RpoS-dependent transcription initiation resistant to H-NS.

SUBMITTER: Wang H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3294804 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Interaction of the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein and the general stress response regulator RpoS at Vibrio cholerae promoters that regulate motility and hemagglutinin/protease expression.

Wang Hongxia H Ayala Julio C JC Benitez Jorge A JA Silva Anisia J AJ

Journal of bacteriology 20111222 5

The bacterium Vibrio cholerae colonizes the human small intestine and secretes cholera toxin (CT) to cause the rice-watery diarrhea characteristic of this illness. The ability of this pathogen to colonize the small bowel, express CT, and return to the aquatic environment is controlled by a complex network of regulatory proteins. Two global regulators that participate in this process are the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) and the general stress response regulator RpoS. In this s ...[more]

PMID: 22194453

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Project description:Production of the Zn-metalloprotease hemagglutinin (HA)/protease by Vibrio cholerae has been reported to enhance enterotoxicity in rabbit ileal loops and the reactogenicity of live cholera vaccine candidates. Expression of HA/protease requires the alternate sigma factor sigma(S) (RpoS), encoded by rpoS. The histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) has been shown to repress rpoS expression in Escherichia coli. In V. cholerae strains of the classical biotype, H-NS has been reported to silence virulence gene expression. In this study we examined the role of H-NS in the expression of HA/protease and motility in an El Tor biotype strain by constructing a Deltahns mutant. The Deltahns mutant exhibited multiple phenotypes, such as production of cholera toxin in nonpermissive LB medium, reduced resistance to high osmolarity, enhanced resistance to low pH and hydrogen peroxide, and reduced motility. Depletion of H-NS by overexpression of a dominant-negative allele or by deletion of hns resulted in diminished expression of HA/protease. Epistasis analysis of HA/protease expression in Deltahns, DeltarpoS, and Deltahns DeltarpoS mutants, analysis of RpoS reporter fusions, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR measurements, and ectopic expression of RpoS in DeltarpoS and DeltarpoS Deltahns mutants showed that H-NS posttranscriptionally enhances RpoS expression. The Deltahns mutant exhibited a lower degree of motility and lower levels of expression of flaA, flaC, cheR-2, and motX mRNAs than the wild type. Comparison of the mRNA abundances of these genes in wild-type, Deltahns, DeltarpoS, and Deltahns DeltarpoS strains revealed that deletion of rpoS had a more severe negative effect on their expression. Interestingly, deletion of hns in the rpoS background resulted in higher expression levels of flaA, flaC, and motX, suggesting that H-NS represses the expression of these genes in the absence of sigma(S). Finally, we show that the cyclic AMP receptor protein and H-NS act along the same pathway to positively affect RpoS expression.

Project description:The cholera disease bacterium V. cholerae, can adopt planktonic or biofilm lifestyles depending on the intracellular concentration of the second messenger cyclic diguanylic acid (c-di-GMP). Biofilm formation protects Vibrios from stressful conditions and facilitates disease transmission by enhancing infectivity. The histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) is a global regulator of genes associated with pathogenicity and responses to environmental stresses. H-NS represses the transcription of genes vpsT, vpsA and vpsL, which are required for the biosynthesis of the biofilm exopolysacchide matrix. Here we demonstrate that the c-di-GMP-binding protein VpsT disrupts H-NS nucleoprotein complexes at the vpsA and vpsL promoters and that this effect is enhanced by c-di-GMP. We used ChIP coupled with Next Generation Sequencing (ChIP-Seq) and transcriptome analysis (RNA-Seq) to identify additional loci repressed by H-NS affecting biofilm formation. This study showed that H-NS directly represses the transcription of genes encoding proteins present in the biofilm matrix such as the rbmA-F cluster, hemolysin and chitinase. Similar to vpsA and vpsL, the promoter region of vpsU, rbmA and rbmF exhibited overlapping H-NS and VpsT binding motifs. Deletion of vpsT increased H-NS occupancy at the vpsU, vpsA, vpsL, rbmA and rbmF promoters. Conversely, artificially increasing the c-di-GMP pool diminished H-NS occupancy at the above promoters. Deletion of vpsT did not affect H-NS occupancy at its own promoter. However, deletion of genes encoding the regulators AphA and VpsR significantly increased H-NS occupancy at the vpsT promoter. In sum, our study shows that c-di-GMP enhances biofilm formation by acting through VpsT to activate an H-NS anti-repression cascade. The Binding profile of V. cholerae H-NS to the genome was determined by ChIP followed by Next Generation Sequencing (ChIP-Seq) using the Illumina HiSeq2000 platform. V. cholerae C7258 cells expressing H-NS-FLAG fusion protein from the hns transcription and translation signals were collected from LB cultures grown to mid-exponential phase (OD600 0.5). An anti-FLAG Immunoprecipitation (IP) and an Input samples were used for the analysis.

Project description:In bacteria, DegS protease functions as an activating factor of the σE envelope stress response system, which ultimately activates the transcription of stress response genes in the cytoplasm. On the basis of high-throughput RNA sequencing, we have previously found that degS knockout inhibits the expression of flagellum synthesis- and chemotaxis-related genes, thereby indicating that DegS may be involved in the regulation of V. cholerae motility. In this study, we examined the relationships between DegS and motility in V. cholerae. Swimming motility and chemotaxis assays revealed that degS or rpoE deletion promotes a substantial reduction in the motility and chemotaxis of V. cholerae, whereas these activities were restored in ΔdegS::degS and ΔdegSΔrseA strains, indicating that DegS is partially dependent on σE to positively regulate V. cholerae activity. Gene-act network analysis revealed that the cAMP-CRP-RpoS signaling pathway, which plays an important role in flagellar synthesis, is significantly inhibited in ΔdegS mutants, whereas in response to the overexpression of cyaA/crp and rpoS in the ΔdegS strain, the motility and chemotaxis of the ΔdegS + cyaA/crp and ΔdegS + rpoS strains were partially restored compared with the ΔdegS strain. We further demonstrated that transcription levels of the flagellar regulatory gene flhF are regulated by DegS via the cAMP-CRP-RpoS signaling pathway. Overexpression of the flhF gene in the ΔdegS strain partially restored motility and chemotaxis. In addition, suckling mouse intestinal colonization experiments indicated that the ΔdegS and ΔrpoE strains were characterized by the poor colonization of mouse intestines, whereas colonization efficacy was restored in the ΔdegSΔrseA, ΔdegS + cyaA/crp, ΔdegS + rpoS, and ΔdegS + flhF strains. Collectively, our findings indicate that DegS regulates the motility and chemotaxis of V. cholerae via the cAMP-CRP-RpoS-FlhF pathway, thereby influencing the colonization of suckling mouse intestines.

Dataset Information

Interaction of the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein and the general stress response regulator RpoS at Vibrio cholerae promoters that regulate motility and hemagglutinin/protease expression.

Publications

Interaction of the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein and the general stress response regulator RpoS at Vibrio cholerae promoters that regulate motility and hemagglutinin/protease expression.

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