Karambelkar, Shweta and Swapna, Ganduri and Nagaraja, Valakunja (2012) Silencing of toxic gene expression by Fis. In: FEBS Journal, 279 (1, SI). p. 485.
|
PDF
nuc_aci_res_karam_2012.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Bacteria and bacteriophages have evolved DNA modification as a strategy to protect their genomes. Mom protein of bacteriophage Mumodifies the phage DNA, rendering it refractile to numerous restriction enzymes and in turn enabling the phage to successfully invade a variety of hosts. A strong fortification, a combined activity of the phage and host factors, prevents untimely expression of mom and associated toxic effects. Here, we identify the bacterial chromatin architectural protein Fis as an additional player in this crowded regulatory cascade. Both in vivo and in vitro studies described here indicate that Fisacts as a transcriptional repressor of mom promoter. Further, our data shows that Fis mediates its repressive effect by denying access to RNA polymerase at mom promoter. We propose that a combined repressive effect of Fis and previously characterized negative regulatory factors could be responsible to keep the gene silenced most of the time. We thus present a new facet of Fis function in Mu biology. In addition to bringing about overall downregulation of Mu genome, it also ensures silencing of the advantageous but potentially lethal mom gene.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | FEBS Journal |
| Publisher: | John Wiley and Sons |
| Additional Information: | Copyright for this article is belongs to the Authors. |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Microbiology & Cell Biology |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Nov 2012 07:26 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Nov 2012 08:01 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/45133 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
