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Journal of Bacteriology, September 2005, p. 6046-6057, Vol. 187, No. 17
0021-9193/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.187.17.6046-6057.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Californias,1 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035,2 Department of Microbiology Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California3
Received 4 January 2005/ Accepted 30 May 2005
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In contrast, relatively little is known about heat shock in the Archaea. Genome sequence information indicates that some archaea lack the HSPs that are common in Eucarya and Bacteria, which were previously thought to be universal (22). For example, Hsp70 (DnaK), Hsp40 (DnaJ), and Hsp60 (GroEL) are absent in members of the Crenarchaeota, although they are found in some members of the Euryarchaeota. The Crenarchaeota have a separate class of Hsp60s that is related to a eucaryotic protein known as TCP1 and only distantly related to the highly conserved bacterial Hsp60s (42, 43). Some crenarchaeal Hsp60s are heat inducible (16, 19), but others are regulated by low temperatures (17) as has also been shown for the related TCP1 proteins in yeast (39). Sequence analyses indicate that some archaea have an ORF for a protein related to the bacterial heat-inducible protease known as Lon, but the archaeal ORF is missing the ATP binding domain and the protein has not yet been biochemically characterized (8, 47).
While it has been proposed that archaeal transcription factors are similar to those in the Eucarya, with TATA binding proteins and transcription factor II B (TFIIB) (4), no heat shock factor homologues have been identified and the few known regulatory proteins in the Archaea have similarities to transcription regulators in the Bacteria. The heat shock promoters, studied by mutagenesis in the halophilic archaeon Haloferax volcanii, revealed a conserved region (5'-CGAA-3') upstream of the TATA box important for both basal and heat shock gene expression and two regions downstream of the TATA box important for heat shock expression (41). In other archaea, the region upstream of the TATA box is conserved but not unique to heat shock-regulated genes, and the downstream regions are not conserved. In the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus, a heat shock regulator (Phr) binds to promoter regions upstream of Hsp20, an ATPase, and its own gene (46), increasing the synthesis of Hsp20 and ATPase but decreasing the synthesis of its own gene product.
Here we analyze the whole-genome heat shock response of the hyperthermophilic archaeon Archaeoglobus fulgidus. A microarray was designed and constructed to minimize cross-hybridization between homologous ORFs. Its application revealed heat-induced changes in the expression of 350 genes out of the 2,410 genes, where 189 exhibited increased mRNA abundance and 161 had reduced abundance over the 60-min time period examined. One differentially expressed ORF, AF1298, that encodes a potential DNA binding protein, was cloned and expressed in E. coli and purified to homogeneity. Electrophoresis mobility shift assays (EMSA) and DNase I footprinting assays were used to document the DNA binding properties of the protein at two heat shock-induced promoters. A role for the protein in A. fulgidus gene regulation and heat shock response is discussed.
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Microarray probe selection and PCR primer design.
Microarray DNA probes were designed using the software MyPROBES available at the website www.seas.ucla.edu/
liaoj/MyPROBES. This program designs optimal microarray probes of all genomic ORFs along with appropriate pairs of PCR primers for amplification from chromosomal DNA. The parameters set in the program included a probe length range of 500 to 2,000 bp, PCR primer melting temperature range of 59 to 63°C, primer length of 20 to 25 bases, GC content range of 50 to 60%, and a BLAST identity score of 100. For the reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) primers, MyPROBES was used with a melting temperature of 59 to 63°C, primer length of 20 to 25 bases, GC content of 50 to 60%, product length of 90 to 120 bp, and BLAST identity score of 25.
PCR amplification of microarray probes. Duplicate 50-µl-volume PCRs were performed in 96-well plates using custom-synthesized (Illumina, San Diego, CA) primers selected by MyPROBES. Chromosomal DNA (1.5 ng) from A. fulgidus VC-16 and the Eppendorf MasterTaq kit (Westbury, NY) were used in the PCRs. The quality of all PCR products was examined by electrophoresis using 1.4% (wt/vol) agarose gels. The products were purified using 96-well filter plates (Millipore Corp., Bedford, MA), resuspended in 50 µl of water, dried to completion in a vacuum concentrator (CentriVap; Labconco, Kansas City, MO), and then resuspended in 10 µl of 3x SSC buffer (1x SSC is 0.15 M NaCl plus 0.015 M sodium citrate).
Microarray spotting. PCR products were transferred to 384-well plates and spotted onto GAPS II slides (Corning, Corning, New York) using a robotic arrayer Virtek ChipWriter Pro (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA). The diameter of each spot was approximately 150 µm, and the distance between the centers of each spot was 200 µm. Slides were hydrated with steam for 2 to 3 s and snap dried on a 100°C heating block. The probes were cross-linked to the surface of the slide by UV light (Stratalinker; Stratagene, La Jolla, CA) at 250 mJ, and the slides were then baked at 80°C for 3 h. To minimize background, the slides were blocked by soaking for 15 min in 250 ml of 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone with 4 g of succinic anhydride and 28 ml of 0.2 M sodium borate solution (pH 8.0). After blocking, the slides were washed with 95°C water for 2 min and transferred to 95% ethanol at room temperature for 1 min and then dried by centrifugation.
Microarray experimental design. The 500-ml cultures were incubated at 78°C without shaking for 12 to 16 h to an optical density at 600 nm (OD600) of 0.2 before transferring to six argon-purged, prewarmed (78°C) culture flasks (60 ml/flask) to ensure a homogenous temperature shock for all cells. After 2 to 3 h, cultures reached an OD600 of 0.3 and 30 ml from each flask was quick cooled in an ethanol-dry ice bath. Cells were harvested by centrifugation (7,000 rpm at 4°C) and resuspended in RNAlater (Ambion). Non-heat-shocked cells were pooled and used as controls. The remaining cultures were transferred to an 89°C water bath and sampled after 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min (Fig. 1). At each time point two 15-ml samples were taken from two different flasks. Samples were immediately transferred to an ethanol-dry ice bath before harvesting cells by centrifugation and resuspending in 1 ml RNAlater buffer for RNA isolation. The experiment was repeated three times. For microarray calibration, a zero time point sample was divided in half, labeled with Cy3 and Cy5, and hybridized to each of two slides. This calibration experiment was performed three times to obtain a reference distribution in the data analysis (15, 44).
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FIG. 1. Schematic plan of heat shock experiments. An initial A. fulgidus 500-ml culture was divided into six smaller flasks and incubated at 78°C. At an OD600 of 0.3, 30 ml of medium was removed from each flask and used as the reference and control. Each flask was then transferred from 78 to 89°C, and samples were removed at 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min after the temperature shift. Samples were taken so that each time point shared a common flask with the previous time point. RNA was purified from each sample and used for hybridization with two microarray slides. The reference samples were pooled together prior to slide hybridization.
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Hybridization, scanning, and data analysis. The concentrated Cy3 and Cy5 cDNA was hybridized and washed as described in reference 26. The dried slides were analyzed using a Virtek scanner at 5 µm. The scanner creates a TIFF file for each channel, Cy3 and Cy5, where two images were simultaneously analyzed in an image analysis program Imagene5 (Biodiscovery, Marina Del Ray, CA) to find spot intensities. Microarray spot intensity data were normalized, and the 95% confidence level was calculated using the software lcDNA (http://receptor.seas.ucla.edu/lcDNA) (15, 44).
Real time RT-PCR. The real time RT was performed using Superscript II (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer's recommended protocol with gene-specific primers and 50 ng of total RNA. The reaction was heat inactivated at 70°C for 10 min. cDNA from the RT reaction (2 µl) was subsequently used in a 25-µl-volume QuantiTect SYBR Green PCR (QIAGEN) according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The real-time PCRs were conducted on a Cephid Smart Cycler unit (Cephid, Sunnyvale, CA) using a four-step program consisting of denaturing, annealing, extension, and acquisition steps. Each primer pair was calibrated using genomic DNA. AF0700, a gene that showed no significant up- or down-regulation in the microarray experiments, was used as the control to which all gene data were normalized.
Cloning of AF1298. The gene encoding AF1298 was PCR amplified using Turbo Pfu (Stratagene, San Diego, CA) using oligonucleotide primers AF1298for (5'-CATATGAAGGGATTAGTGCCCCGAG-3') and AF1298rev (5'-GCGGCCGCCTTTATCATCCAAACAACTTC-3') containing restriction sites NdeI and NotI, respectively. After the amplification, the fragment was incubated at 72°C with MasterTaq (Eppendorf) for 10 min before ligation into plasmid vector pTOPO4 (Invitrogen). The sequence of the insert was verified by DNA sequencing. The vector containing the insert and pET29b was cut with NdeI and NotI. PET29b was dephosphorylated using calf intestinal alkaline phosphatase (Promega, Madison, WI). The linearized vector and the cut insert were gel purified using a QIAGEN gel purification kit (QIAGEN, Valencia, CA). The two products were ligated using a rapid ligation kit (Roche, Indianapolis, IN). The resulting plasmid was transformed into BL21codonplus(DE3)-RIL for protein expression.
Expression and purification of AF1298. E. coli BL21codonplus cells were grown in LB medium containing 200 µl/ml ampicillin and 35 µl/ml chloramphenicol at 37°C with shaking. At an OD600 of 1.0, the culture was induced with isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside with a final concentration of 0.6 mM. After 4 h of incubation, the cells were harvested by centrifugation and resuspended in buffer (20 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.4, 0.5 M NaCl, 20 mM imidazole). The resuspended cells were broken with a French press at 100 mPa, and the cell suspension was centrifuged at 8,000 rpm for 10 min at 4°C. The supernatant was then filtered with a 22-µm filter and applied to a 1-ml HisTrap HP (Amersham, Piscataway, NJ) column, and the column was washed with 5 ml of the phosphate buffer. The recombinant protein was eluted with a step gradient in imidazole, 2 ml for each step, starting at 100 mM imidazole and increasing with 100 mM steps to 400 mM imidazole. Fractions (1 ml) were collected where the recombinant protein eluted in the second fraction of 400 mM imidazole. The protein was concentrated, and the buffer was exchanged to 20 mM Tris, pH 7.6, 150 mM KCl, 0.5 mM MgCl2, 10% glycerol using a YM-30 column (Millipore). Purity was evaluated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and the protein concentration was measured using the DC protein assay (Bio-Rad).
EMSA. Promoter fragments extending between 175 to +50 relative to the ORF start codon were PCR amplified from genomic DNA using primers containing EcoRI sites on the forward primers and HindIII or XbaI sites on the reverse primers. The PCR products were purified using QiaQuick columns, digested using EcoRI and HindIII or XbaI, and repurified using QiaQuick columns (QIAGEN). The fragments were cloned into pUC18 and transformed into XL1-Blue, and the intended DNA sequences were confirmed.
For electrophoretic mobility shift assays, promoter fragments were generated by PCR using the above plasmids, gel purified on a 6% Tris-borate-EDTA-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis gel and then extracted overnight in 800 µl of Crush and Soak buffer with shaking at 37°C. The resulting solution was diluted in five volumes of BP buffer, and DNA was purified using a QiaQuick column (QIAGEN). The DNA binding assay was carried out in 17.5 µl of binding buffer (10 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 50 mM KCl, 7 mM CaCl2, 8.6% glycerol, 0.0036% bovine serum albumin) containing 20 ng of DNA and protein at the indicated concentrations. The AF1298 protein stock solution (0.05 M Tricine, pH 8.0, 0.2 M KCl, 20 mM CaCl2, 0.5 mM dithiothreitol) concentration was 400 nM. The reaction mixtures were preincubated for 12 min at room temperature before separation on a 6% DNA retardation gel (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) at 100 V for 45 min. The gels were soaked for 20 min in 50 ml 1x TBE containing SybrGreen, washed twice in MilliQ water for 10 seconds, and analyzed using a Kodak EDA290 camera system. Protein analysis was performed with a Bio-Rad dye kit (Bio-Rad Laboratories).
DNase I footprinting.
The PCR product was digested with EcoRI, HindIII, or XbaI, end labeled with [
-32P]dATP or [
-32P]dCTP (ICN, Inc.) using the Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase I, and purified using a Quick spin column clean-up kit (Roche). DNase I footprinting assays were carried out in 30 µl of binding buffer, as for the EMSA, with a final DNA concentration of 2 nM. The AF1298 protein was diluted to the indicated concentrations and incubated at room temperature for 10 min. DNase I (Sigma) was added (2 µl of a 1:4,000 dilution of 10-mg/ml stock in water), and incubation continued for 8 min at room temperature. Reactions were stopped by the addition of 7 µl of stop buffer (0.1 M ETDA, pH 8, 1.7 M sodium acetate, pH 5.2). Following precipitation, the samples were resuspended in loading dye, subjected to electrophoresis on an 8% polyacrylamide gel containing 6 M urea, and detected by a Molecular Dynamics PhosphorImager.
Identifying potential binding sites. A Perl script was written to identify potential DNA binding sites with either a perfect match or a 1-bp mismatch for the palindromic CAATC-5N-GATTG sequence, where N is either A, C, G, or T.
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Heat shock response in A. fulgidus. A. fulgidus grows within the range of 60°C to 95°C, and optimal cell growth occurs at 83°C (18). A limited heat shock response study was previously documented using cultures shifted from 78°C to 89°C (7). To examine the whole-genome transcription profile in A. fulgidus in response to heat shock, total cellular RNA was prepared from cells at six intervals over a 60-min time period (Fig. 1). As shown in the experimental approach, cDNA prepared for each time point was hybridized to two slides to monitor changes in transcript abundance with increasing time following heat shock (i.e., at 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min). The experiment was replicated two additional times to give a total of 12 data sets. Calibration experiments with no heat shock (i.e., 78°C versus 78°C at time zero) were also conducted to determine the statistical confidence level of each transcript measurement. By comparing the average intensities of each ORF using the Cy3 and Cy5 channels, the hybridization efficiencies were determined to have no bias (data not shown). The 95% confidence interval for the expression ratio of each ORF was calculated using the software package lcDNA (see Materials and Methods).
Within the above confidence intervals, 118 of the 2,410 A. fulgidus ORFs exhibited increased mRNA levels, while 120 ORFs exhibited decreased mRNA levels by 5 min after the temperature shift (Tables 1 and 2). This represents a change in approximately 10% of the genome. In general, the expression of the genes remained elevated (or reduced) during the next 55 min. By 60 min, 189 ORFs showed increased expression, while 161 ORFs exhibited decreased expression, totaling 14% of the genes in the A. fulgidus genome. When categorized by function, the differentially expressed genes were broadly dispersed across a variety of predicted cellular roles (Tables 1 and 2). The most frequently affected categories, with increased or decreased abundance of mRNA, were "energy production and conservation," and "not categorized" functions. A complete summary of the results for these genes is available as Table S1 in the supplemental material.
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TABLE 1. Genes significantly up-regulated categorized by cluster of orthogonal genes
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TABLE 2. Genes significantly down-regulated, categorized by cluster of orthogonal genes
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The time course of expression for 11 of the most significantly induced genes is shown in Fig. 2. Three of the genes form an apparent operon consisting of AF1298 (a hypothetical protein), AF1297 (cell division control protein 48, cdc48-1), and AF1296 (small heat shock protein, hsp20-1). Maximum expression of each gene occurred at 5 min, followed by a slight reduction over the next 55 min. AF1971, which encodes a putative small heat shock protein (hsp20-2), exhibited the greatest elevation in mRNA levels (ca. 12-fold) (Fig. 2). Other genes that showed at least a threefold change by 5 minutes included AF1813 (TATA binding protein-interacting protein TIP49, tip49), AF1323 (group II carboxylase), AF1835 (conserved hypothetical protein), AF1526 (conserved hypothetical protein), AF0172 (hypothetical protein), AF1451 (thermosome beta subunit, thsB), and AF2238 (thermosome alpha subunit, thsA).
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FIG. 2. Temporal pattern of gene expression in response to heat shock. Data for each gene were plotted if a threefold or greater abundance of mRNA was observed at 5 min post-temperature shift. The x axis is expressed in minutes, while the y axis is the expression change in fold mRNA abundance. The error bars represent one standard deviation.
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FIG. 3. Comparison of real-time RT-PCR data versus the corresponding DNA microarray data. The mRNA change in response to heat shock was measured as described in Materials and Methods using microarray hybridization and real-time RT-PCR. Data for the 5- and the 10-min changes relative to the 0-min time are indicated, where the correlation coefficient was 0.944.
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FIG. 4. Multiple amino acid sequence alignments of putative heat shock regulatory proteins. The indicated sequences were aligned using ClustalW 1.83 with the default settings. The sequences were the following: AF1298, Archaeoglobus fulgidus; cmi2, Haloferax volcanii; VNG1843C, Halobacterium sp. (strain NRC-1); MA4576, Methanosarcina acetivorans; MM1257, Methanosarcina mazei; METH0903, Methanosarcina barkeri; PF1790, Pyrococcus furiosus; PAB0208, Pyrococcus abyssi; PH1744, Pyrococcus horikoshii; MTH1288, Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus strain Delta H.
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FIG. 5. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays for the AF1298, AF1971, and AF1813, DNA fragments. The concentration of HSR1 protein from left to right was 0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2000 nM. EMSA for the promoter regions from position bp 175 to +50 relative to the start of translation.
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Identification of cis-acting sequences of HSR1. To further analyze the DNA binding region recognized by the AF1298 gene product, DNase I footprinting was performed on the promoter elements for AF1298 and AF1971. The DNA binding protein protected a 70-bp region on the noncoding strand of the AF1971 promoter element (Fig. 6A) and a 45-bp region on the coding strand (Fig. 6B). At the AF1298 promoter, HSR1 protected a 60-bp region on the noncoding strand (Fig. 7A) and a 30-bp region on the coding strand (Fig. 7B). Since the AF1298 protein binds to its own promoter element, it appears to constitute an autoregulatory heat shock-inducible regulator.
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FIG. 6. DNase I footprint of AF1971 DNA on the coding and noncoding strands. Coding strand (lanes 1 to 7): lane 1, G reaction; lanes 2 to 7, increasing levels of HSR1 protein (from left to right) of 0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 nM. Noncoding strand (lanes 8 to 14): lane 8 to 13, increasing levels of HSR1 protein (from left to right) of 0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 nM; lane 14, G reaction. The numbering of the DNA is relative to the start of translation.
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FIG. 7. DNase I footprinting of AF1298 DNA on the coding and noncoding strands. Coding strand (lanes 1 to 7): lane 1, G reaction: lanes 2 to 7, increasing concentrations of the HSR1 protein (from left to right) of 0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 nM. Noncoding strand (lanes 8 to 14): lane 8, G reaction as ladder; lanes 9 to 14, increasing HSR1 protein (from left to right) of 0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 nM. The numbering of the DNA is relative to the start of translation.
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Other known heat shock genes in the Bacteria express ATP-dependent proteases, such as Clp, Lon, and HslUV. In A. fulgidus a Lon homolog without the ATP binding domain has been described (47), but we observed that the AF0364 gene was not differentially expressed upon heat shock. In Thermoplasma acidophilum, the protease complex known as the proteosome is essential for survival in heat stress (31), but we observed that the proteosome beta subunit, PsmB (AF0481), was slightly heat induced after 60 min. The alpha subunit, PsmA (AF0490), was decreased 2.5-fold by heat after 10 min. These transcriptome results are similar in several ways to P. furiosus (38), although in P. furiosus there are six heat-induced ATP-independent proteases and peptidases. Four of these have homologs in A. fulgidus, but only two were heat induced: AF1652 (subtilisin-like peptidases) and AF0235 (HtpX, heat shock protein X). AF1652 was induced 1.8-fold at 30 min, in contrast to its counterpart in P. furiosus, which was induced almost 12-fold (38). A. fulgidus HtpX was induced twofold in 30 min. In E. coli, HtpX is regulated by CpxA-CpxR and is a membrane-bound metalloprotease with a cytoplasm-exposed active site (37). The role and location of HtpX in A. fulgidus has not yet been determined.
Role of AF1298 in A. fulgidus heat shock. The AF1298 gene product, designated here as HSR1, was demonstrated to bind to the promoter elements of two of the newly identified heat shock genes in A. fulgidus, AF1298 and AF1971 (Fig. 5 to 7). While it is not yet possible to assign the recognition sequence associated with HSR1 binding to DNA, an alignment of the two promoter regions reveals three regions with similarity. A 13-bp region contains a recognizable BRE box and a TATA box (Fig. 8). The third region is within the HSR1-proteced region and consists of a 17-bp region located 6 bp downstream of the TATA box. It has a palindromic motif, CTAAC-N5-GTTAG, where the central five nucleotides constitute a hypothetical spacer element. The HSR1-protected region is located immediately downstream of the putative TATA box, thus overlapping the transcriptional start sites of AF1298 and AF1971. The palindromic motif is absent in the AF1831 upstream region that failed to exhibit a HSR1 gel shift (Fig. 5).
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FIG. 8. Alignment of promoter DNA sequences for AF1298, AF1971, and AF1813. The sequences were aligned using GAP alignment from the GCG Wisconsin package 10.3 (Accelrys Inc., San Diego, CA). Three conserved regions are marked with gray boxes: the TATA box, the BRE interaction site, and a downstream potential binding site for HSR1. A conserved palindromic motif, CTAAC-N5-GTTAG, is indicated by the opposing arrows. The horizontal lines above (AF1298) and below (AF1971) the DNA sequences indicate the regions protected in the DNase I footprint experiments.
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In our microarray analysis of the A. fulgidus heat shock response, we identified a self-regulating heat shock regulator (HSR1) with homology to one known and four potential new heat shock regulators in other Euryarchaeota species (Fig. 4). These include cmi2, VNG1843C, MA4576, and MM1257. The N-terminal region is the most highly conserved region and contains a potential HTH motif likely responsible for DNA recognition and binding by each protein. Interestingly, the AF1298, cmi2, VNG1843C, MA4576, and MM1257 homologs from two halophilic species and from two methanogen species also lack a 4-amino-acid spacer following the HTH region that is present in the more distantly related proteins, including Phr of P. furiosus. Similarly, the five AF1298 homologs also exhibit considerably reduced amino acid similarity in their C-terminal domains relative to Phr. Therefore, AF1298 appears to constitute a distantly related protein subfamily relative to Phr. It may also function differently. There is evidence that the HTH motif located in the N terminus may function as a negative regulator (28). By one plausible scenario, we propose that HSR1 binds DNA under normal cell growth temperatures (ca. 78°C), interferes with RNA polymerase interactions with TFB, and thereby inhibits transcription. At increased temperature, HSR1 is released from the DNA allowing transcription to proceed. A related control mechanism has been proposed for Phr in P. furiosus (46) and for HrcA in the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis (33). The prevention of recruitment of RNA polymerase is similar to the metal-dependent regulator MDR1 in A. fulgidus, where MDR1 with bound metal ions binds DNA to prevent RNA polymerase to start transcription (3). There are also similarities between HSR1 and HrcA in gram-positive bacteria, where the latter binds to palindromic cis-elements downstream of a sigma factor binding site to negatively regulate a small subset of heat-induced genes. A detailed mechanism of the heat shock regulation of AF1298 and AF1971 and the basis for HSR1 in this process remain to be elucidated.
Lipid metabolism. In other organisms, microarray analysis of heat shock has revealed a large number of differentially regulated ORFs, many of which have unknown or uncharacterized functions (14, 30, 40). In A. fulgidus we observed that heat induced or repressed the expression of genes related to energy production, amino acid metabolism, and lipid metabolism, thus indicating the importance of metabolic adaptation to heat stress (Tables 1 and 2). It is known that membrane composition, particularly the composition of isoprenoids in Archaea, may undergo significant changes during heat shock (6, 42). Among the known isoprenoid pathway genes, AF1736/MvaA (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A [HMG-CoA] reductase) is the only gene we observed to be heat induced in A. fulgidus. This gene encodes a rate-controlling enzyme in the mevalonate pathway leading to isoprenoid biosynthesis. Shimada et al. (36) overexpressed HMG-CoA in yeast and increased the carotenoid production two- to fourfold (36), indicating that in yeast HMG-CoA is a limiting step in the mevalonate pathway. It is therefore possible that increasing MvaA is sufficient to increase isoprenoid biosynthesis in Archaea.
Organic solutes. Organic solutes are also known to influence thermotolerance of hyperthermophilic Archaea (23). A. fulgidus responds to heat shock by increased synthesis of di-myo-inositol-1,1'(3,3')-phosphate (DIP) and diglycerol phosphate by almost 30- and 2-fold, respectively (20). While the metabolic pathways for these organic solutes have not been fully elucidated, two different pathways for DIP synthesis have been proposed (5). In Methanococcus igneus (5), L-myo-inositol-1-phosphate reacts with CTP to form CDP-inositol, which reacts with myo-inositol to create DIP, and in Pyrococcus woesei (32) two L-myo-inositol-1-phosphates form a phosphodiester bond with the presumed hydrolysis of NTP (32). Both proposed pathways start with L-myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthesis from glucose-6-phosphate. In A. fulgidus, we observed that the myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase (AF1794) was not differentially regulated by heat shock, although the gene in P. furiosus was clearly heat induced (38). We did observe that the gene for inositol monophosphatase (AF2373), which converts L-myo-inositol-1-phosphate to form myo-inositol, is heat induced 1.4-fold. If A. fulgidus uses the pathway proposed for M. igneus DIP synthesis, AF2315 encodes a candidate protein with a cytidylyltransferase domain since it is the only gene that is heat induced. This protein is currently categorized as a nicotinamide-nucleotide adenylyltransferase and has not been implicated in this pathway. It is possible that another heat-induced gene, such as AF1835, AF0172, AF0555, AF2160, or AF0267, could influence DIP synthesis, but this has yet to be determined.
Archaeal heat shock gene regulation. Compared to bacterial and eucaryal heat shock studies, relatively few microarray analyses have been reported for the Archaea (1, 2, 34, 35, 38, 48). Among them, only one investigated the heat shock response of a hyperthermophilic archaeon, and this utilized a partial-genome array of Pyrococcus furiosus (38). When P. furiosus was shifted from its normal growth temperature of 90°C to a heat shock temperature of 105°C, 55 of the hand-picked 201 genes used in the microarray were differentially expressed. Thus, no conclusion could be made about the extent of the heat shock response in this microorganism. Thus, the current A. fulgidus experiments constitute the first whole-genome heat shock study in the Archaea and provide the foundation for comparing related processes in the Bacteria and Eucarya. Although a large set of genes exhibit differential mRNA abundance upon heat shock (ca. 14% of the genome), little is yet known about the means by which this is accomplished.
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/. ![]()
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