Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
mBio. 2023 Dec 19;14(6):e0220123. doi: 10.1128/mbio.02201-23. Epub 2023 Oct 17.
Histone-like nucleoid structuring (H-NS) and H-NS-like proteins coordinate host-associated behaviors in many pathogenic bacteria, often through forming silencer/counter-silencer pairs with signal-responsive transcriptional activators to tightly control gene expression. and related bacteria do not encode H-NS or homologs of known H-NS-like proteins, and it is unclear if they have other proteins that perform analogous functions during pathogenesis. In this work, we provide compelling evidence for the role of MucR as a novel H-NS-like protein in . We show that MucR possesses many of the known functions attributed to H-NS and H-NS-like proteins, including the formation of silencer/counter-silencer pairs to control virulence gene expression and global structuring of the nucleoid. These results uncover a new role for MucR as a nucleoid structuring protein and support the importance of temporal control of gene expression in and related bacteria.
组蛋白样核小体结构（H-NS）和 H-NS 样蛋白在许多致病性细菌中协调与宿主相关的行为，通常通过与信号响应转录激活子形成沉默子/反沉默子对来紧密控制基因表达。然而， 和相关细菌不编码 H-NS 或已知 H-NS 样蛋白的同源物，也不清楚它们是否在发病过程中有其他具有类似功能的蛋白质。在这项工作中，我们提供了令人信服的证据证明 MucR 是 中的一种新型 H-NS 样蛋白。我们表明 MucR 具有许多已知归因于 H-NS 和 H-NS 样蛋白的功能，包括形成沉默子/反沉默子对以控制毒力基因表达和核小体的全局结构。这些结果揭示了 MucR 作为核小体结构蛋白的新作用，并支持了 在 和相关细菌中基因表达的时间控制的重要性。
