Alteration of DNA supercoiling serves as a trigger of short-term cold shock repressed genes of E. coli.

ABSTRACT: Cold shock adaptability is a key survival skill of gut bacteria of warm-blooded animals. Escherichia coli cold shock responses are controlled by a complex multi-gene, timely-ordered transcriptional program. We investigated its underlying mechanisms. Having identified short-term, cold shock repressed genes, we show that their responsiveness is unrelated to their transcription factors or global regulators, while their single-cell protein numbers' variability increases after cold shock. We hypothesized that some cold shock repressed genes could be triggered by high propensity for transcription locking due to changes in DNA supercoiling (likely due to DNA relaxation caused by an overall reduction in negative supercoiling). Concomitantly, we found that nearly half of cold shock repressed genes

SUBMITTER: Dash S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9410904 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature