Borrelia burgdorferi serine protease HtrA is a pleiotropic regulator of stress response, motility, flagellar hemostasis, and infectivity.

ABSTRACT: High-temperature requirement protease A (HtrA) is a family of serine proteases that regulate bacterial stress response through controlling protein quality. This report shows that the Lyme disease bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi HtrA has a pleiotropic role in regulation of bacterial stress response, motility, flagellar hemostasis, and infectivity. Loss-of-function study first shows that a deletion mutant of htrA (∆htrA) fails to establish an infection in a murine model of Lyme disease. Interestingly, this defect can be restored only with its endogenous promoter. Follow up mechanistic study reveals that the expression of htrA varies under different growth conditions and is finely regulated and that deletion of htrA leads to dysregulation of several key virulence determinants of B. burgdorferi

SUBMITTER: Zhang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11873206 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature