Population fitness and the regulation of Escherichia coli genes by bacterial viruses.

ABSTRACT: Temperate bacteriophage parasitize their host by integrating into the host genome where they provide additional genetic information that confers higher fitness on the host bacterium by protecting it against invasion by other bacteriophage, by increasing serum resistance, and by coding for toxins and adhesion factors that help the parasitized bacterium invade or evade its host. Here we ask if a temperate phage can also regulate host genes. We find several different host functions that are down-regulated in lysogens. The pckA gene, required for gluconeogenesis in all living systems, is regulated directly by the principal repressor of many different temperate prophage, the cI protein. cI binds to the regulatory region of pckA, thereby shutting down pckA transcription. The pckA regulatory regi

SUBMITTER: Chen Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1151598 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature