This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Peng, X.
Right arrow Articles by Garrett, R. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Peng, X.
Right arrow Articles by Garrett, R. A.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Bacteriology, April 2003, p. 2410-2417, Vol. 185, No. 8
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.8.2410-2417.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Genus-Specific Protein Binding to the Large Clusters of DNA Repeats (Short Regularly Spaced Repeats) Present in Sulfolobus Genomes

Xu Peng, Kim Brügger, Biao Shen, Lanming Chen, Qunxin She, and Roger A. Garrett*

Danish Archaea Centre, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, Sølvgade 83H, DK-1307 Copenhagen, Denmark

Received 4 November 2002/ Accepted 24 January 2003

Short regularly spaced repeats (SRSRs) occur in multiple large clusters in archaeal chromosomes and as smaller clusters in some archaeal conjugative plasmids and bacterial chromosomes. The sequence, size, and spacing of the repeats are generally constant within a cluster but vary between clusters. For the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2, the repeats in the genome fall mainly into two closely related sequence families that are arranged in seven clusters containing a total of 441 repeats which constitute ca. 1% of the genome. The Sulfolobus conjugative plasmid pNOB8 contains a small cluster of six repeats that are identical in sequence to one of the repeat variants in the S. solfataricus chromosome. Repeats from the pNOB8 cluster were amplified and tested for protein binding with cell extracts from S. solfataricus. A 17.5-kDa SRSR-binding protein was purified from the cell extracts and sequenced. The protein is N terminally modified and corresponds to SSO454, an open reading frame of previously unassigned function. It binds specifically to DNA fragments carrying double and single repeat sequences, binding on one side of the repeat structure, and producing an opening of the opposite side of the DNA structure. It also recognizes both main families of repeat sequences in S. solfataricus. The recombinant protein, expressed in Escherichia coli, showed the same binding properties to the SRSR repeat as the native one. The SSO454 protein exhibits a tripartite internal repeat structure which yields a good sequence match with a helix-turn-helix DNA-binding motif. Although this putative motif is shared by other archaeal proteins, orthologs of SSO454 were only detected in species within the Sulfolobus genus and in the closely related Acidianus genus. We infer that the genus-specific protein induces an opening of the structure at the center of each DNA repeat and thereby produces a binding site for another protein, possibly a more conserved one, in a process that may be essential for higher-order stucturing of the SRSR clusters.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Danish Archaea Centre, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, Sølvgade 83H, DK-1307 Copenhagen, Denmark. Phone: 45-35322010. Fax: 45-35322040. E-mail: garrett{at}mermaid.molbio.ku.dk.


Journal of Bacteriology, April 2003, p. 2410-2417, Vol. 185, No. 8
0021-9193/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.185.8.2410-2417.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.




This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Horvath, P., Romero, D. A., Coute-Monvoisin, A.-C., Richards, M., Deveau, H., Moineau, S., Boyaval, P., Fremaux, C., Barrangou, R. (2008). Diversity, Activity, and Evolution of CRISPR Loci in Streptococcus thermophilus. J. Bacteriol. 190: 1401-1412 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Ventura, M., Canchaya, C., Tauch, A., Chandra, G., Fitzgerald, G. F., Chater, K. F., van Sinderen, D. (2007). Genomics of Actinobacteria: Tracing the Evolutionary History of an Ancient Phylum. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 71: 495-548 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Grissa, I., Vergnaud, G., Pourcel, C. (2007). CRISPRFinder: a web tool to identify clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Nucleic Acids Res 35: W52-W57 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Lundgren, M., Bernander, R. (2007). Genome-wide transcription map of an archaeal cell cycle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 2939-2944 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Erauso, G., Stedman, K. M., van de Werken, H. J. G., Zillig, W., van der Oost, J. (2006). Two novel conjugative plasmids from a single strain of Sulfolobus. Microbiology 152: 1951-1968 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Yanai, K., Murakami, T., Bibb, M. (2006). Amplification of the entire kanamycin biosynthetic gene cluster during empirical strain improvement of Streptomyces kanamyceticus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103: 9661-9666 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Bolotin, A., Quinquis, B., Sorokin, A., Ehrlich, S. D. (2005). Clustered regularly interspaced short palindrome repeats (CRISPRs) have spacers of extrachromosomal origin. Microbiology 151: 2551-2561 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Chen, L., Brugger, K., Skovgaard, M., Redder, P., She, Q., Torarinsson, E., Greve, B., Awayez, M., Zibat, A., Klenk, H.-P., Garrett, R. A. (2005). The Genome of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, a Model Organism of the Crenarchaeota. J. Bacteriol. 187: 4992-4999 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Lundgren, M., Andersson, A., Chen, L., Nilsson, P., Bernander, R. (2004). Three replication origins in Sulfolobus species: Synchronous initiation of chromosome replication and asynchronous termination. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101: 7046-7051 [Abstract] [Full Text]