Toward the identification of a type I toxin-antitoxin system in the plasmid DNA of dairy Lactobacillus rhamnosus.

ABSTRACT: Plasmids carry genes that give bacteria beneficial traits and allow them to survive in competitive environments. In many cases, they also harbor toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems necessary for plasmid maintenance. TA systems are generally characterized by a stable "toxin", a protein or peptide capable of killing the cell upon plasmid loss and by an unstable "antitoxin", a protein or a non-coding RNA that inhibits toxin activity. Here we report data toward the identification of a RNA-regulated TA system in the plasmid DNA of L. rhamnosus isolated from cheese. The proposed TA system comprises two convergently transcribed RNAs: a toxin RNA encoding a 29 amino acid peptide named Lpt and an antitoxin non-coding RNA. Both toxin and antitoxin RNAs resulted upregulated under conditions mimicking cheese

SUBMITTER: Folli C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5608710 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature