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f The Fur homologue BosR requires Arg39 to activate transcription in and thereby direct spirochaete infection in mice

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The Fur homologue BosR requires Arg39 to activate transcription in and thereby direct spirochaete infection in mice, Page 1 of 1

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  • is the causative agent of Lyme disease. In , RpoS controls the expression of virulence genes needed for mammalian infection. The Fur homologue BosR regulates the transcription of and therefore BosR determines, albeit indirectly, the infection status of the spirochaete. Transcription of in is complex: can be transcribed either from an RpoD-dependent promoter to yield a long transcript or from an RpoN-dependent promoter to yield a short transcript. This study shows that BosR repressed synthesis of the long transcript while at the same time activating synthesis of the short transcript. How BosR does this is unclear. To address this, spirochaetes were engineered to express either BosR or the naturally occurring variant BosRR39K. Mice became infected by the spirochaetes expressing BosR but not by the spirochaetes expressing BosRR39K. Furthermore, the spirochaetes expressing BosR activated transcription during growth in culture whereas the spirochaetes expressing BosRR39K did not. Thus, BosR's activation of transcription somehow involves Arg39. This arginine is highly conserved in other FUR proteins and therefore other FUR proteins may also require this arginine to function.

  • Seven supplementary tables, nine supplementary figures and supplementary methods are available with the online Supplementary Material.

  • Edited by: A. van Vliet

  • Abbreviations:
    kan kanamycin resistance
    qRT-PCR quantitative real-time PCR
    str streptomycin resistance

© 2015 The Authors

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2015-11-01
2019-02-24
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