Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Paris, France.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2010 Mar;304(2):140-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2009.01894.x.
Type IV pili are crucial for the virulence of Neisseria meningitidis. PilC proteins belong to the complex protein machinery required for pili biosynthesis. The expression of the pilC1 gene is known to be induced during host cell contact and to be tightly controlled through four promoters, two transcription factors and a two-component signal transduction system. By screening of an insertional-mutant library, we identified a novel regulatory protein, i.e. NMA1805, involved in the pilC1 complex regulation. Increased transcription of gene NMA1805 was shown to result in augmented expression of the pilC1 gene, whereas abrogated expression of gene NMA1805 was associated with an absence of pilC1 induction upon contact with host cells. Moreover, we demonstrated that the NMA1805 gene displayed two promoters. The NMA1805 regulatory protein was evidenced to interact with one of them.
IV 型菌毛对于脑膜炎奈瑟氏球菌的毒力至关重要。PilC 蛋白属于菌毛生物合成所需的复杂蛋白机制。已知 pilC1 基因的表达在与宿主细胞接触时被诱导，并通过四个启动子、两个转录因子和一个双组分信号转导系统进行严格控制。通过插入突变文库的筛选，我们鉴定出一种新型调节蛋白，即 NMA1805，它参与 pilC1 复合物的调节。基因 NMA1805 的转录增加导致 pilC1 基因的表达增强，而基因 NMA1805 的表达被阻断与与宿主细胞接触时 pilC1 诱导的缺失有关。此外，我们证明了 NMA1805 基因显示出两个启动子。已经证明 NMA1805 调节蛋白与其中之一相互作用。
