1887

Abstract

DksA acts as a co-factor for the intracellular small signalling molecule ppGpp during the stringent response. We recently reported that the expression of the haemagglutinin protease (HAP), which is needed for shedding of the cholera pathogen during the late phase of infection, is significantly downregulated in mutant (∆) cells. So far, it has been shown that HAP production by cells is critically regulated by HapR and also by RpoS. Here, we provide evidence that DksA (DksA) positively regulates HapR at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. We show that in ∆ cells the CsrB/C/D sRNAs, required for the maintenance of intracellular levels of transcripts during the stationary growth, are distinctly downregulated. Moreover, the expression of exponential phase regulatory protein Fis, a known negative regulator of HapR, was found to continue even during the stationary phase in ∆ cells compared to that of wild-type strain, suggesting another layer of complex regulation of HapR by DksA. Extensive reporter construct-based and quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) analyses supported that RpoS is distinctly downregulated at the post-transcriptional/translational levels in stationary phase-grown ∆ cells. Since HAP expression through HapR and RpoS is stationary phase-specific in , it appears that DksA is also a critical stationary phase regulator for fine tuning of the expression of HAP. Moreover, experimental evidence provided in this study clearly supports that DksA is sitting at the top of the hierarchy of regulation of expression of HAP in .

Keyword(s): CsrBCD , DksA , Fis , HAP , HapR , RpoS and stationary phase
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2017-06-01
2024-03-29
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