Project description:In the alpha subclass of proteobacteria iron homeostasis is controlled by diverse iron responsive regulators. Caulobacter crescentus, an important freshwater Î±-proteobacterium, uses the ferric uptake repressor (Fur) for such purpose. However, the impact of the iron availability on the C. crescentus transcriptome and an overall perspective of the regulatory networks involved remain unknown. In this work we report the identification of iron-responsive and Fur-regulated genes in C. crescentus using microarray-based global transcriptional analyses. We identify 46 genes that were strongly upregulated both by mutation of fur and by iron limitation condition. Among them, there are genes involved in iron uptake (four TonB dependent receptor gene clusters, feoAB), riboflavin biosynthesis and some genes encoding hypothetical proteins. Most of these genes are associated with Fur binding sites, implicating them as direct targets of Fur-mediated repression. These data were validated by Î²-galactosidase and EMSA assays for two operons encoding putative transporters. The role of Fur as a positive regulator is also evident, given that 50 genes were downregulated both by mutation of fur and under low-iron condition. As expected, this group includes many genes involved in energy metabolism, mostly iron-using enzymes. Surprisingly, are also included in this group many genes encoding TonB dependent receptors and the genes fixK, fixT and ftrB encoding an oxygen signaling network required for growth during hypoxia. Bioinformatics analyses performed in the promoters of these genes suggest that positive regulation by Fur is mainly indirect. In addition to the Fur modulon, iron limitation altered expression of more 103 genes, including upregulation of genes involved in Fe-S cluster assembly, oxidative stress and heat shock response, as well as downregulation of genes implicated in amino acid metabolism, chemotaxis and motility. Altogether, our results showed that adaptation of C. crescentus to iron limitation involves increasing the transcription of iron-acquisition systems and decreasing the production of iron-using proteins as a general strategy Two experimental procedures, each of them performed in two replicates. A total of four independent biological samples were used

Project description:Intracellular zinc concentration needs to be maintained within strict limits due to its toxicity at high levels, and this is achieved by a finely regulated balance between uptake and efflux. Many bacteria use the Zinc Uptake Regulator Zur to orchestrate zinc homeostasis, but little is known regarding the transport of this metal across the bacterial outer membrane. In this work we determined the C. crescentus Zur regulon by global transcriptional and in silico analyses. Among the genes directly repressed by Zur are those encoding a putative high affinity ABC uptake system (znuCBA), three TonB-dependent receptors (znuD, znuE and znuF) and one new putative transporter of a family not yet characterized (zrpW). Zur is also directly involved in the activation of a RND and a P-type ATPase efflux systems, as revealed by Î²-galactosidase and site-directed mutagenesis assays. Several genes belonging to the Fur regulon were also downregulated in the zur mutant, suggesting a putative cross-talk between Zur and Fur regulatory networks. Interestingly, a phenotypic analysis of the znuD and znuE mutants has shown that these genes are essential for growth under zinc starvation, suggesting that C. crescentus uses these TonB-dependent outer membrane transporters as key zinc scavenging systems. The DNA microarray experiments were performed as described in (da Silva Neto et al., 2013). Briefly, cDNA was generated from 12.5 Âµg of total RNA and labeled with either Cy3 or Cy5 fluorescent dyes (FairPlay III Microarray Labeling System, Stratagene). Labeled cDNA samples were hybridized to a Caulobacter DNA oligo microarray (Agilent), and the arrays were scanned with an Agilent High Resolution Microarray Scanner. RNA from three independent biological cultures was used for DNA microarray analysis. We considered as differentially expressed genes those showing a minimum of 2-fold change relative to the control, considering at least three out of the four last probes for each gene (that are downstream of the translational start site) in at least two of three biological replicates. The values for the relative expression of each gene were obtained as the average of the four last probes.

Project description:Recently described microarray studies have defined the genes that are regulated in response to iron and heme levels in three isolates of Haemophilus influenzae. Comparison of the data sets have allowed us to develop a putative core iron/heme modulon. Included in the core modulon are thirty seven genes that are preferentially expressed under iron/heme limitation. The majority of these genes are involved with iron and or heme acquisition such as hitA, tonB, exbD, exbB, hgpB, hgpC and the hxu and tbp operons. In addition, we identified several other loci with roles potentially related to iron and heme metabolism such as protection against oxidative stress, iron and heme storage and detoxification and biofilm formation. In this report, we describe the further definition of the core iron/heme modulon following transcriptomic analysis of H. influenzae strains 86028NP and R2846. With the defined core, we then test our original hypothesis that M-bM-^@M-^\iron and heme regulated genes are upregulated, and important, during clinical infectionM-bM-^@M-^]. The in vivo expression profiles of the core genes were determined following inoculation of select isolates into the bullae of chinchillas. Isolates selected included 86028NP and a previously un-characterized isolate HI1722. To facilitate studies with the latter isolate, we sequenced the genome and annotated the identified CDS to ensure that oligonucleotides selected for Q-PCR would correctly target each gene of interest. The results from the in vitro studies show that the operons identified as core are actively upregulated in the chinchilla ear during otitis media. For isolate 86-028NP, 70% of the operons were significantly upregulated while isolate NTHI1722 had 100% of the operons upregulated. Three replicate cultures were grown in iron and heme depleted media for 90 minutes and samples taken for expression analyses. Fe and heme were supplemented to the remaining cultures and the cultures allowed to incubate an additional 20 minutes. Microarray analyses were used to determine changes in gene expression resulting from transfer from FeHm-deplete to FeHm-replete conditions.

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Iron stimulon and Fur regulon

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