Identification of the Vibrio vulnificus htpG gene and its influence on cold shock recovery.

An htpG gene encoding the heat shock protein HtpG was identified and cloned from Vibrio vulnificus. The deduced amino acid sequence of HtpG from V. vulnificus exhibited 71 and 85% identity to those reported from Escherichia coli and V. cholera, respectively. Functions of HtpG were assessed by the construction of an isogenic mutant whose htpG gene was deleted and by evaluating its phenotype changes during and after cold shock. The results demonstrated that recovery of the wild type from cold shock was significantly faster (p<0.05) than that of the htpG mutant, and indicated that the chaperone protein HtpG contributes to cold shock recovery, rather than cold shock tolerance, of V. vulnificus.