The Escherichia coli toxin MqsR destabilizes the transcriptional repression complex formed between the antitoxin MqsA and the mqsRA operon promoter.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial biofilms are complex communities of cells containing an increased prevalence of dormant cells known as persisters, which are characterized by an up-regulation of genes known as toxin-antitoxin (TA) modules. The association of toxins with their cognate antitoxins neutralizes toxin activity, allowing for normal cell growth. Additionally, protein antitoxins bind their own promoters and repress transcription, whereas the toxins serve as co-repressors. Recently, TA pairs have been shown to regulate their own transcription through a phenomenon known as conditional cooperativity, where the TA complexes bind operator DNA and repress transcription only when present in the proper stoichiometric amounts. The most differentially up-regulated gene in persister cells is mqsR, a gene that, with

SUBMITTER: Brown BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3543012 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature