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Journal of Bacteriology, May 2004, p. 2966-2972, Vol. 186, No. 10
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.10.2966-2972.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

TcaR, a Putative MarR-Like Regulator of sarS Expression

Nadine McCallum,1 Markus Bischoff,1 Hideki Maki,1,{dagger} Akihito Wada,2 and Brigitte Berger-Bächi1*

Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Zürich, CH-8028 Zürich, Switzerland,1 Department of Bacteriology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Shinjuku-ku, 162-8640 Tokyo, Japan2

Received 4 September 2003/ Accepted 29 January 2004

TcaR, which shares sequence homology with MarR-like transcriptional regulators, has been identified as a novel Staphylococcus aureus regulator affecting the expression of the global regulatory element SarS (SarH1), as well as that of the cell surface-associated protein SasF (N315-SA2439). Microarray analysis, confirmatory Northern blots, and genetic complementation experiments showed that TcaR upregulates sarS and thus spa transcription. In addition, it attenuates whole-length transcription of sasF, thereby producing a truncated transcript lacking the 3' terminus, which codes for the cell wall anchor motif. Hence, in strains containing an intact tcaR gene, TcaR is likely to decrease the amount of the surface-associated protein SasF and to increase that of the surface-associated protein A. The widely used laboratory strains derived from NCTC8325 were found to be natural, truncated mutants of tcaR, harboring an inactive TcaR and therefore expressing very low levels of sarS. The data presented here identified TcaR as a further activator of sarS, and a modulator of sasF expression that has to be taken into account in studies of virulence gene expression in S. aureus.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Zürich, Gloriastr. 32, Postfach, CH8028 Zürich Switzerland. Phone: 41-1-634-2650. Fax: 41-1-634-4906. E-mail: bberger{at}immv.unizh.ch.

{dagger} Present address: Discovery Research Laboratories, Shionogi & Co., Ltd., Toyonaka, Osaka 561-0825, Japan.

Journal of Bacteriology, May 2004, p. 2966-2972, Vol. 186, No. 10
0021-9193/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.10.2966-2972.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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