Cordeiro Tamires Fernanda Vilas Boas, Gontijo Marco Túlio Pardini, Jorge Genesy Perez, Brocchi Marcelo
Department of Genetics, Evolution, Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Biology, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Rua Monteiro Lobato 255, Campinas 13083-862, Brazil.
Microorganisms. 2022 Sep 30;10(10):1945. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms10101945.
Genomic compaction is an essential characteristic of living organisms. Nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) are a group of small proteins that play crucial roles in chromosome architecture and affect DNA replication, transcription, and recombination by imposing topological alterations in genomic DNA, thereby modulating global gene expression. EbfC/YbaB was first described as a DNA-binding protein of that regulates the expression of surface lipoproteins with roles in virulence. Further studies indicated that this protein binds specifically and non-specifically to DNA and colocalises with nucleoids in this bacterium. The data showed that this protein binds to DNA as a homodimer, although it can form other organised structures. Crystallography analysis indicated that the protein possesses domains responsible for protein-protein interactions and forms a "tweezer" structure probably involved in DNA binding. Moreover, sequence analysis revealed conserved motifs that may be associated with dimerisation. Structural analysis also showed that the tridimensional structure of EbfC/YbaB is highly conserved within the bacterial domain. The DNA-binding activity was observed in different bacterial species, suggesting that this protein can protect DNA during stress conditions. These findings indicate that EbfC/YbaB is a broadly distributed NAP. Here, we present a review of the existing data on this NAP.
基因组压缩是生物体的一个基本特征。类核相关蛋白（NAPs）是一组小蛋白，它们在染色体结构中发挥关键作用，并通过对基因组DNA施加拓扑改变来影响DNA复制、转录和重组，从而调节全局基因表达。EbfC/YbaB最初被描述为一种DNA结合蛋白，它调节表面脂蛋白的表达，在毒力方面发挥作用。进一步的研究表明，这种蛋白能特异性和非特异性地结合DNA，并与该细菌中的类核共定位。数据显示，这种蛋白以同二聚体的形式结合DNA，尽管它可以形成其他有组织的结构。晶体学分析表明，该蛋白拥有负责蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用的结构域，并形成一个可能参与DNA结合的“镊子”结构。此外，序列分析揭示了可能与二聚化相关的保守基序。结构分析还表明，EbfC/YbaB的三维结构在细菌域内高度保守。在不同细菌物种中都观察到了DNA结合活性，这表明这种蛋白可以在应激条件下保护DNA。这些发现表明EbfC/YbaB是一种广泛分布的NAP。在此，我们对关于这种NAP的现有数据进行综述。
