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Journal of Bacteriology, September 2005, p. 6094-6105, Vol. 187, No. 17
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.187.17.6094-6105.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Toxin-Antitoxin System of the Streptococcal Plasmid pSM19035

Urszula Zielenkiewicz* and Piotr Ceglowski

Department of Microbial Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland

Received 22 November 2004/ Accepted 6 June 2005

pSM19035 of the pathogenic bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes is a low-copy-number plasmid carrying erythromycin resistance, stably maintained in a broad range of gram-positive bacteria. We show here that the {omega}-{varepsilon}-{zeta} operon of this plasmid constitutes a novel proteic plasmid addiction system in which the {varepsilon} and {zeta} genes encode an antitoxin and toxin, respectively, while {omega} plays an autoregulatory function. Expression of toxin Zeta is bactericidal for the gram-positive Bacillus subtilis and bacteriostatic for the gram-negative Escherichia coli. The toxic effects of {zeta} gene expression in both bacterial species are counteracted by proper expression of {varepsilon}. The {varepsilon}-{zeta} toxin-antitoxin cassette stabilizes plasmids in E. coli less efficiently than in B. subtilis.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbial Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland. Phone: (48) 22 592 12 06. Fax: (48) 22 658 46 36. E-mail: ulazet{at}ibb.waw.pl.

Journal of Bacteriology, September 2005, p. 6094-6105, Vol. 187, No. 17
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.187.17.6094-6105.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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