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J. Bacteriol., 05 1996, 2960-2970, Vol 178, No. 10
AW Williams, S Yamaguchi, F Togashi, SI Aizawa, I Kawagishi and RM Macnab
Mutations in the fliK gene of Salmonella typhimurium commonly cause failure
to terminate hook assembly and initiate filament assembly (polyhook
phenotype). Polyhook mutants give rise to pseudorevertants which are still
defective in hook termination but have recovered the ability to assemble
filament (polyhook-filament phenotype). The polyhook mutations have been
found to be either frameshift or nonsense, resulting in truncation of the C
terminus of FliK. Intragenic suppressors of frameshift mutations were found
to be ones that restored the original frame (and therefore the C-terminal
sequence), but in most cases with substantial loss of natural sequence and
sometimes the introduction of artificial sequence; in no cases did
intragenic suppression occur when significant disruption remained within
the C- terminal region. By use of a novel PCR protocol, in-frame deletions
affecting the N-terminal and central regions of FliK were constructed and
the resulting phenotypes were examined. Small deletions resulted in almost
normal hook length control and almost wild-type swarming. Larger deletions
resulted in loss of control of hook length and poor swarming. The largest
deletions severely affected filament assembly as well as hook length
control. Extragenic suppressors map to an unlinked gene, flhB, which
encodes an integral membrane protein (T. Hirano, S. Yamaguchi, K. Oosawa,
and S.-I. Aizawa, J. Bacteriol. 176:5439-5449, 1994; K. Kutsukake, T.
Minamino, and T. Yokoseki, J. Bacteriol. 176:7625-7629, 1994). They were
either point mutations in the C- terminal cytoplasmic region of FlhB or
frameshift or nonsense mutations close to the C terminus. The processes of
hook and filament assembly and the roles of FliK and FlhB in these
processes are discussed in light of these and other available data. We
suggest that FliK measures hook length and, at the appropriate point, sends
a signal to FlhB to switch the substrate specificity of export from hook
protein to late proteins such as flagellin.
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology
Mutations in fliK and flhB affecting flagellar hook and filament assembly in Salmonella typhimurium
Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8114, USA.
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