Project description:This study examined the genes under the control of FlhDC and sigmaF in E. coli. Keywords: wild-type, deletion and overexepression strains Under defined steady-state growth condition, we used two different genetic approaches to alter the modulator concentration in cells; (1) moderately expressing FlhDC or sigmaF from anhydrotetracycline (aTc) inducible and Tet repressor-controlled PLtet promoter in a plasmid-borne flhDC or fliA gene; (2) disrupting the expression of FlhDC or sigmaF in flhDC or fliA deletion mutant strains. Samples were taken from culture with wild-type or deletion strains at mid log phase (OD=0.2) or from overexpression strains at mid log phase (OD=0.2) before or 5 minutes after moderate induction. Samples were then RNA-stabilized using Qiagen RNAProtect Bacterial Reagent (Qiagen). Total RNA was then isolated using MasterPure kits (Epicentre Technologies). Purified RNA was reverse-transcribed to cDNA, labeled and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip E. coli Antisense Genome Arrays as recommended in the technical manual (www.affymetrix.com).
Project description:Chemoreceptors enable bacteria to modulate their swimming behavior in accordance with the perceived environmental cues. Bacteria exhibit large diversity of stimuli sensed by their chemoreceptors, whereas the output of receptors to the chemotaxis signaling pathway that controls flagellar motor is typically highly conserved. Here, we characterize a unique chemoreceptor-like protein, Tls, which is found in the B2 phylogroup of Escherichia coli that includes many extraintestinal pathogenic (ExPEC) strains. Instead of mediating chemotactic signaling, Tls controls motility by repressing the expression of flagellar genes, and thus cell motility, apparently by sequestering the transcriptional master activator of flagellar genes, FlhDC. Furthermore, we observe that the subcellular localization of Tls, the sequestration of FlhDC, and the repression of flagellar genes and motility are all abolished during growth on porous medium, indicating that this regulation may be mechanosensitive. Deletion of tls in a uropathogenic E. coli leads to reduced attachment to the urinary tract cells, but an increased migration to and/or proliferation in the murine gut, a pathogen reservoir niche, thus implicating Tls in the regulation of motility during infection.
Project description:Expression and use of motility genes is a potentially beneficial but costly process in bacteria. Interestingly, many isolate strains of Escherichia coli possess motility genes but have lost the ability to activate them in conditions in which motile cells are advantageous, raising the question of how they respond to these situations. Through transcriptome profiling of strains in the E. coli single-gene knockout Keio collection, we noticed drastic upregulation of motility genes in many of the deletion strains as compared to its typically non-motile parent strain (BW25113). This switch to a motile phenotype is not a direct consequence of the genes deleted, but is instead due to a variety of secondary mutations that increase the synthesis of the major motility regulator, FlhDC. We found that a phenotypic switch to motility at a population level can be induced in non-motile E. coli strains by incubation in non-shaking liquid medium overnight but not in shaking media. Individual isolates after the overnight incubation acquired distinct mutations upstream of the flhDC operon, including different insertion sequence (IS) elements and, to a lesser extent, point mutations. The rapid sweep in the non-shaking population shows that non-motile strains without existing regulatory mechanisms can quickly adapt to a motile lifestyle by quickly acquired genetic changes.
Project description:Bacterial motility shows a strong evolvable feature depending on the environment. Hyper-motile E. coli could be isolated by evolving non-motile E. coli due to the mutations that enhanced transcriptional expression of the master regulator of the flagellum biosynthesis, FlhDC. These hyper-motile isolates showed reduced growth fitness but with the molecular mechanisms unrevealed. Here we obtained a novel type of hyper-motile isolates by evolving a weakly-motile E. coli K12 strain on the soft agar plates. These isolates carried high accumulated FlhDC proteins and they shared one single point mutation of ClpXV78F. The V78F affected the ATP binding to ClpX via steric repulsive effect and the mutated ClpXP protease lost most of its ability to degraded FlhDC and some other of its known targets. The signal tag of FlhDC for ClpXP recognition was also characterized. Intriguingly, in the hyper-motile strains, the highly enhanced expression of the motility genes was accompanied by the reduced expression of stress resistance genes relating to the reduced fitness of these isolates. Hence, ClpX appeared to be a novel and hot locus during the evolution of bacterial motility and the molecular mechanism of the trade-off between motility and growth was proposed for the first time.
Project description:Bacterial motility shows a strong evolvable feature depending on the environment. Hyper-motile E. coli could be isolated by evolving non-motile E. coli due to the mutations that enhanced transcriptional expression of the master regulator of the flagellum biosynthesis, FlhDC. These hyper-motile isolates showed reduced growth fitness but with the molecular mechanisms unrevealed. Here we obtained a novel type of hyper-motile isolates by evolving a weakly-motile E. coli K12 strain on the soft agar plates. These isolates carried high accumulated FlhDC proteins and they shared one single point mutation of ClpXV78F. The V78F affected the ATP binding to ClpX via steric repulsive effect and the mutated ClpXP protease lost most of its ability to degraded FlhDC and some other of its known targets. The signal tag of FlhDC for ClpXP recognition was also characterized. Intriguingly, in the hyper-motile strains, the highly enhanced expression of the motility genes was accompanied by the reduced expression of stress resistance genes relating to the reduced fitness of these isolates. Hence, ClpX appeared to be a novel and hot locus during the evolution of bacterial motility and the molecular mechanism of the trade-off between motility and growth was proposed for the first time.
Project description:The use of whole genome microarrays for monitoring mutagenised or otherwise engineered genetic derivatives is a potentially powerful tool for checking genomic integrity. Using comparative genomic hybridization of a number of unrelated, directed deletion mutants in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 we identified unintended secondary genomic deletions in the flhDC region in deltafnr, deltacrp, and deltacreB mutants. These deletions were confirmed by PCR and phenotypic tests. Our findings show that non-motile progeny are found in some populations of MG1655 directed deletion mutants, and studies on the effects of gene knock-outs should be viewed with caution when the mutants have not been screened for the presence of secondary deletions, or confirmed by other methods. Keywords: comparative genomic hybridisation
Project description:Substrains in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 can possess various swimming motility, which is mostly resulted from different expression levels of flhDC. Here, we studied the swimming motility of two MG1655 substrains, CY562 and CY570. Our results showed that CY562 had no insertion at the promoter region of flhDC and possessed no swimming motility. In contrast, CY570 had an IS-element insertion at the promoter region of flhDC and showed a hyper-motile phenotype. Transcriptomic data suggest that expression of flhDC and the other known flagella genes was much lower in CY562 than that in CY570. Moreover, CY562 possessed higher expression levels for genes involved in stress response, especially acid-stress response, than CY570. Consistently, CY562 showed a higher survival rate under acid stress than CY570. Our data indicate that there are mechanisms conversely regulating motility and stress response in E. coli.
Project description:The use of whole genome microarrays for monitoring mutagenised or otherwise engineered genetic derivatives is a potentially powerful tool for checking genomic integrity. Using comparative genomic hybridization of a number of unrelated, directed deletion mutants in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 we identified unintended secondary genomic deletions in the flhDC region in fnr, crp, and creB mutants. These deletions were confirmed by PCR and phenotypic tests. Our findings show that non-motile progeny are found in some populations of MG1655 directed deletion mutants, and studies on the effects of gene knock-outs should be viewed with caution when the mutants have not been screened for the presence of secondary deletions, or confirmed by other methods. We used the CGH method to genetically characterize a series of regulatory gene deletion mutants we had made in MG1655 using the lamda-Red method of Datsenko and Wanner. A number of strains were tested using CGH, and each strain was tested only once. Genomic DNA isolated from wt MG1655 was used as a reference in all hybridisations.
Project description:While global transcription factors (TFs) have been studied extensively in Escherichia coli model strains, conservation and diversity in TF regulation between strains is still unknown. Here we use a combination of ChIP-exo--to define ferric uptake regulator (Fur) binding sites--and differential gene expression--to define the Fur regulon in nine E. coli strains. We then define a pan-regulon consisting of 469 target genes that includes all Fur target genes in all nine strains. The pan-regulon is then divided into the core regulon (target genes found in all the strains, n=36), the accessory regulon (target found in two to eight strains, n=158) and the unique regulon (target genes found in one strain, n=275). Thus, there is a small set of Fur regulated genes common to all nine strains, but a large number of regulatory targets unique to a particular strain. Many of the unique regulatory targets are genes unique to that strain. This first-established pan-regulon reveals a common core of conserved regulatory targets and significant diversity in transcriptional regulation amongst E. coli strains, reflecting diverse niche specification and strain history.