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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2000, p. 4670-4672, Vol. 182, No. 16
National Creative Research Initiative Center
for Behavioral Genetics, Department of Biological Sciences, Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Yusong-Ku, Taejon
305-701, Republic of Korea
Received 6 April 2000/Accepted 25 May 2000
H-NS regulates the flagellar master operon (flhDC) and
thus is necessary for flagellation of Escherichia coli.
However, the molecular mechanism of its regulation has remained
unknown. Genetic screening of a transposon insertion abolishing the
H-NS effect revealed a previously unidentified gene, named
hdfR, encoding a LysR family protein. Binding of purified
HdfR to the flhDC promoter was demonstrated by a DNA
mobility shift assay, indicating that HdfR is a transcriptional
regulator for the flagellar master operon. Furthermore, the expression
of the hdfR gene was shown to be negatively regulated by
H-NS.
The Escherichia coli
flagellar system consists of more than 40 genes whose products are
required for flagellar assembly, function, and sensory signaling
(12). Expressions of the genes are regulated in a cascade
mode. At the top of the hierarchy is the flhDC operon, encoding the FlhD and FlhC proteins, which are essential for expression of downstream flagellar genes (11). Flagellar expression is affected by various environmental conditions (20), perhaps
involving at least some transcriptional regulators. In most cases,
flagellar expression is modulated at the transcriptional level of the
flhDC operon. The cyclic AMP (cAMP) receptor protein-cAMP
complex and the OmpR protein are known to affect the expression of the
flhDC operon by binding to its promoter region (21,
23).
H-NS, a nucleoid protein (7, 25), affects the expression of
many unrelated genes, including proVWX, bgl
(9), appY (1), and fimB
(6) of E. coli or Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhimurium, and also affects expression of some virulence
genes of Salmonella serovar Typhimurium and
Shigella spp. (8, 16, 13). The majority of
affected genes are negatively regulated by H-NS, although some,
including the flagellar regulon, are positively regulated. It has been
reported that H-NS-deficient cells are nonflagellated because of
reduced transcription of flhDC (4). Although it
was assumed that H-NS positively affects flhDC
transcription, its regulation has not been clearly demonstrated. In an
assay of in vitro transcription of the flhDC operon
(23), purified H-NS did not enhance the transcription. Thus,
it was suspected that the regulation of flhDC by H-NS might
be indirect.
In this study, we isolated an insertion enabling cells to enhance
flhDC expression even in the absence of H-NS. The insertion was found in a gene, named hdfR, encoding a LysR family
protein, which has a helix-turn-helix DNA-binding motif. HdfR binds to the promoter region of the flhDC operon, and its expression
was negatively regulated by H-NS, suggesting that the apparent
activation of flhDC transcription by H-NS is mediated
through the negative regulator HdfR.
A transposon insertion abolishing the repression of
flhDC-lacZ due to an H-NS defect.
Genetic screening
employing random transposon insertion was performed to search for a
putative mediator involved in the H-NS-dependent regulation of
flhDC. As a tool to monitor flhDC expression, the flhDC-lacZ protein fusion contained in bacteriophage
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Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
H-NS-Dependent Regulation of Flagellar Synthesis Is
Mediated by a LysR Family Protein
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SS10
(21) was used. The lower level of LacZ activity of the
protein fusion made it possible to screen for a clone with a
distinguishable phenotype on an indicator plate, which was impractical
with the transcriptional fusion used later. A pool of random transposon insertions obtained from CP807 (E. coli K-12
lacZ
thr leu his met) (21) infected with phage
::TnphoA132 (tet) (26)
was transferred to MS368 (MC4100 flhD+
SS10
hns::neo) (27) by P1.
Among the derivatives of MS368 containing random insertions, a clone
showing derepression of flhDC-lacZ even in the absence of
H-NS was selected on indicator agar plates (Luria-Bertani agar
containing 50 µg of
5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-
-D-galactopyranoside [X-Gal]/ml) and exhibited a consistent increase in LacZ activity (14) when transferred back to MS368.
MS205) and MS359 (MS358
hns::neo) lysogenized with
MS205,
containing the flhDC-lacZ transcriptional fusion. The
MS205 phage was constructed by subcloning the flhDC
region including
544 to +593 from the transcriptional start
(23) into pRS415 (promoterless lacZYA; bla), which was double recombined into
RS45
('lacZAY bla') using lacZAY and bla
homologies (22). A strain with a single prophage, confirmed
by PCR (17), was used to monitor the transcriptional activities of the flhDC-lacZ fusion. As shown in
Fig. 1, the LacZ activity of MS372
containing the transposon insertion, later designated hdfR::TnphoA132, was higher than that
of the parent strain and was not affected by an
hns::neo mutation. This indicates that the transposon insertion abolished the hns effect on
flhDC transcription.

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FIG. 1.
Effects of hns and hdfR mutations
on the transcription of the flhDC operon.
-Galactosidase
activities expressed from the strains containing the
flhDC-lacZ transcriptional fusion in
MS205 were measured
in cells grown in TB medium (1% tryptone, 0.25% NaCl) at 35°C to an
optical density at 600 nm of 0.4 to 0.5. Strains used were MS358
(
MS205 hns+ hdfR+), MS359 (MS358
hns), MS372 (MS358 hdfR), MS373 (MS358 hns
hdfR), MS372/pMS272
H (hdfR/pHdfR), and
MS373/pMS272
H (hns hdfR/pHdfR). The activities of
-galactosidase are presented in Miller units (14), with
standard deviations (error bars) estimated from three independent
samples.
The insertion was found in a novel gene named hdfR.
The
site of the transposon insertion was identified by an inverse PCR.
After digestion of chromosomal DNA with Sau3A1, PCR amplification was performed for the ligated DNA with a pair of outwardly directed primers complementary to the regions in the transposon. The DNA amplified was sequenced to search for homology in
the E. coli genome database. The result revealed an
insertion site in the putative gene yifA at 84 min (Fig.
2). In the E. coli genome
database for strain MG1655, yifA is located next to another gene, pssR, named under the presumption that it locates in
the same region where pssR1 was mapped (24). The
pssR1 strain was isolated as a mutant exhibiting an elevated
expression of pssA, encoding the phosphatidylserine
synthase.
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Flagellar regulation by hdfR seems independent of membrane phospholipid. As described previously, hdfR was found in a region where pssR, which is involved in the expression of pssA, was mapped. On the other hand, it was reported that the pssA and psd genes, encoding enzymes for the synthesis of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), are required for the expression of the flhDC operon (19). Thus, one might suspect that flagellar regulation and phospholipid synthesis might be associated at either the genetic or the physiological level.
In order to test whether hdfR is allelic to pssR, whose mutation increases the expression of pssA, we examined the effect of hdfR insertion on the expression of the pssA gene using a PpssA-lacZ fusion on pMS330. The plasmid contained the promoter fragment, including 440 bp upstream to 174 bp downstream from the translation initiation site of pssA. The
-galactosidase activities of pMS330 in MS296
(MC4100 flhD+), MS299 (MS296
hns::neo), MS377 (MS296
hdfR::TnphoA132), and MS380 (MS296
hns::neo
hdfR::TnphoA132) were similar within the ranges between 11,300 and 14,300 Miller units (14). This
result suggests that the hdfR gene may not regulate
pssA and thus differs from pssR. We also measured
the proportions of PE among the total cellular phospholipids from the
wild type (MS296) and hns mutant (MS299) strains using
thin-layer chromatography (15). The two strains contained
similar ratios of PE: 71.2% for MS296 and 72.4% for MS299. This
implies that the hns effect on the transcription of
flhDC is not due to a PE depletion.
Purified HdfR binds to the promoter region of flhDC.
In
order to test the possibility of HdfR serving as a transcriptional
regulator, a gel shift assay was performed with purified HdfR for the
promoter region of the flhDC operon, including
626 to +185
from the transcription start. HdfR with a C-terminal His tag
(HdfR-His6) was expressed under the control of the T7
promoter from the pET-HdfR plasmid derived from pET-21b (Novagen).
After induction with isopropyl-
-D-thiogalactopyranoside
(IPTG) in the BL21(DE3) strain, the amount of the HdfR-His6
protein was estimated to be about 10% of the total soluble fraction
that appeared on a Coomassie-stained SDS-polyacrylamide gel. For
purification of HdfR with an additional 22 amino acids including the
His tag at the C terminus, a His-bind resin (Novagen) was loaded with
an addition of
3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)-dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate (CHAPS) (Sigma) to the binding buffer at a concentration of 0.25% because HdfR-His6 bound much better under mildly denaturing
conditions than under native conditions. The purified protein exhibits
a size of about 35 kDa with more than 98% purity on an
SDS-polyacrylamide gel. The binding of purified HdfR-His6
on the DNA fragment shifted mobility on gel electrophoresis (Fig.
3), suggesting that the protein functions
as a transcriptional regulator for the flhDC operon.
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Expression of the hdfR gene is negatively regulated by
H-NS.
The results so far suggest a possibility that HdfR is a
mediator for H-NS-dependent regulation of the flhDC operon.
The next question would be how hdfR is regulated by H-NS. We
directly examined the expression of hdfR by H-NS by
subcloning the fragment of hdfR containing its promoter
region (flanked by Sau3AI) to lacZ (preceded by a
BamHI site) in pMC1396 (5). The resulting plasmid
(pMS274) carries a lacZ translational fusion, whose
-galactosidase activity was increased about twofold by a deletion of
hns (hns::neo), from 1,022.3 ± 5.6 Miller units for the wild type (MS296/pMS274) to 2,181.1 ± 20.1 for its hns::neo
drivative (MS299/pMS274). This result indicates that H-NS negatively
modulates the expression of hdfR, although we still cannot
exclude the possibility of indirect interaction between H-NS and the
promoter of hdfR.
Nucleotide sequence accession number. The nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of the hdfR gene have been submitted to GenBank under accession no. AF25103.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank T. Mizuno, Bob Simons, and C. Ueguchi for strains and plasmids.
This work was supported in part by the Creative Research Initiative Program.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: National Creative Research Initiative Center for Behavioral Genetics, Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Yusong-Ku, Taejon 305-701, Republic of Korea. Phone: 82-42-869-2629. Fax: 82-42-869-2610. E-mail: ckpark{at}mail.kaist.ac.kr.
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