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Journal of Bacteriology, February 2008, p. 1128-1133, Vol. 190, No. 3
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JB.00511-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, CRB2 Room 1.08, 1550 Orleans Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21231-1044
Received 3 April 2007/ Accepted 7 November 2007
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sigG mutant was found to be more resistant to mitomycin C treatment than the wild-type strain, indicating that it may be involved in the SOS response in M. tuberculosis. |
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Construction of
sigG mutant.
sigG mutant construction was carried out as described previously (21) using the suicide vector pCK0686 (7). The left flanking region of sigG was amplified with primers sigGP1 and sigGP2, and the right flanking region was amplified with primers sigGP3 and sigGP4 (see Table S1 in the supplemental material). After amplification by PCR, the two flanks were ligated into pCK0686. To construct the complemented strain, approximately 5.5 kb of the region containing the sigG gene was amplified using primers gcomp1 and gcomp2 and then cloned into the pMH94 vector (8) at the XbaI sites. Putative mutant candidates were screened by PCR with the RT-sigG primer set (Fig. 1B) and by Southern blotting (Fig. 1C and D). The
sigG mutant strain was confirmed by the absence of a 17.5-kb band using the sigG gene probe (Fig. 1C) and the appearance of a 12-kb band using the hygromycin gene probe (Fig. 1D). Complementation was achieved by cloning a 5.5-kb sigG-containing fragment into pMH94 and introducing this plasmid into the mutant strain (Fig. 1C).
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FIG. 1. Confirmation of the M. tuberculosis sigG deletion mutant. The sigG mutant was confirmed by PCR and Southern blotting. (A) Physical map of the genes around sigG and the restriction endonuclease sites used for Southern blotting. Chromosomal DNA was purified from the parental wild-type, sigG mutant, and complemented strains. PCR was performed with primers RT-sigG1 and RT-sigG2, which were designed to bind to the deleted region, and with primer RT-sigA for the control. (B) Identification of mutant strain by PCR. Lane 1, molecular marker (1-kb Plus ladder; Invitrogen); lane 2, wild type with RT-sigG; lane 3, sigG mutant with RT-sigG; lane 4, wild type with RT-sigA; lane 5, sigG mutant with RT-sigA. (C) Left panel, ethidium bromide stain of gel prior to transfer. Right panel, Southern blot in which chromosomal DNA from wild-type, sigG mutant, and complemented strains were digested with restriction enzyme XbaI and hybridized with the sigG gene probe generated by PCR with primers RT-sigG1 and RT-sigG2. Lane 1, marker (Dig marker III; Roche); lane 2, wild-type strain; lane 3, sigG mutant strain; lane 4, complemented strain. (D) Southern blot in which chromosomal DNA was digested with XhoI and hybridized with the hygromycin gene-specific probe. Lane 1, marker (Dig marker III; Roche); lane 2, wild type; lane 3, sigG mutant strain.
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Gene expression profiles of a
sigG strain.
We monitored changes in sigG expression during the growth cycle, comparing log-phase (optical density [OD], 0.5), early-stationary-phase (OD, 1.0), and late-stationary-phase (OD, 2.0) levels by real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) with an RT primer set (see Table S1 in the supplemental material). sigG expression was 4.3- ± 0.3-fold greater at an OD of 1 and 4.1- ± 1.2-fold greater at an OD of 2. Therefore, we compared the
sigG mutant to the wild type to determine expression changes in early stationary phase (OD, 1) and late stationary phase (OD, 2) that might be attributable to the absence of sigG expression at these growth phases. The
sigG mutant was investigated by real-time RT-PCR with the RT primer set (see Table S1 in the supplemental material). The threshold cycle (CT) value was normalized to the value for sigA, and the expression level of the wild type was compared with that of the
sigG strain. As shown in Fig. 2, the
sigG mutant was confirmed not to express sigG mRNA. For the other sigma factors, sigH and sigF gene expression was decreased, while the expression of sigD was increased. It is known that the expression of the M. tuberculosis sigma factors is interdependent. SigH regulates sigE and sigB, and SigL and SigF regulate sigB (3, 10, 16), while other sigma factors, such as sigD, sigK, and sigM, have autotranscription properties (18). The effect of deletion of the sigG gene on the expression of sigH and sigD represents another example of cascade gene regulation among sigma factors in M. tuberculosis.
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FIG. 2. Expression profiles of M. tuberculosis sigma factors in the sigG mutant strain. The relative expression profile of each sigma factor in the sigG-deficient mutant was determined by real-time RT-PCR at OD of 1 and 2. The CT value of each gene of interest (GOI) was normalized with the housekeeping gene (HKG), sigA. The relative expression value was obtained by the ![]() Ct method: . Regulation of individual genes was calculated using the following term: , where S is the sigG strain and C is the wild-type strain. Open bars, OD of 1; shaded bars, OD of 2.
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sigG mutant compared to that of the wild-type CDC1551 strain revealed over 100 genes that were down-regulated in the
sigG mutant relative to the wild type (see Table S2 in the supplemental material). Several genes which may be involved in fatty acid metabolism were found to be down-regulated, including aceA, the isocitrate lyase gene (Rv0467), fadE5, the acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase gene (Rv0244), and scoA, the succinyl-coenzyme A gene (Rv2504c). Other genes that were down-regulated have been shown to be induced in the murine macrophage model; these genes include the heat shock protein gene, Rv0251c (which is induced during exposure to heat, H2O2, and sodium dodecyl sulfate), the isocitrate lyase gene, aceA (12, 20), and lat, the L-lysine-epsilon aminotransferase gene (Rv3290c) (which is induced in a starvation model) (22). In the
sigG mutant rpfC expression was induced 11- and 7-fold at OD of 1 and 2, respectively, and hsp (Rv0251c) expression was decreased 0.03- and 0.44-fold at OD of 1 and 2, respectively. rpf genes encode resuscitation-promoting factors and may have an extracytoplasmic location. M. tuberculosis has five rpf-like genes, rpfA (Rv0867c), rpfB (Rv1009), rpfC (Rv1884c), rpfD (Rv2389c), and rpfE (Rv2450c) (4, 15). A previous study showed that there was induction of hsp (Rv0251c), which appears to be SigG dependent in the
rpfC deletion mutant (4). The microarray profile of the
sigG mutant identified several down-regulated genes which have been shown to be under SigH control, including clpB, dnaK, Rv2466c, and trxB2. In addition, two other genes that are directly SigD regulated, Rv1815 and rpfC, were found to be up-regulated in the
sigG mutant (Table 1) (15). |
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TABLE 1. Microarray analysis of sigma factor- and SOS box-related genes in the M. tuberculosis sigG mutant compared to the wild typea
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FIG. 3. Identification of the SigG promoter recognition sequence. The putative SigG regulon was identified by microarray data analysis. The nucleotide sequences of the 5' UTR of down-regulated genes in the sigG mutant were aligned using the Clustal W multialignment sequence analysis program. Identical nucleotide sequences are indicated by a black background, and the consensus sequence motif was determined by weblogo software. N indicates the space between the –35 and –10 regions.
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sigG mutant. recA is a gene involved in the SOS response and contains a LexA binding motif (SOS box) in the promoter region. We also found that lexA contained a putative SigG consensus binding site in its 5' UTR 262 bp from the start codon, which was confirmed to be regulated by SigG by in vitro transcription (Fig. 4) and real-time RT-PCR (Fig. 5). For the in vitro transcription assay, the entire open reading frame of the sigG gene was amplified with primers petsigG1 (see Table S1 in the supplemental material) and petsigG2 and cloned into the pET22b(+) vector (Novagen). The construct was transformed into Escherichia coli BL21(DE3), protein expression was induced with 1 mM isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG), and the protein was purified by Ni-nitrilotriacetic (Ni-NTA) acid affinity chromatography. In vitro transcription assays were performed as described in a previous study (21). The lexA gene promoter was amplified by PCR using primers lex1 (see Table S1 in the supplemental material) and lex2, the 400-bp PCR product was purified by gel extraction (Qiagen), and 0.09 µg was used as a DNA template. As shown in Fig. 4, we detected the anticipated in vitro transcript with a length of 300 nucleotides.
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FIG. 4. In vitro transcription assay of the M. tuberculosis lexA gene promoter region with purified SigG protein. The 5' UTR of the lexA gene was amplified using PCR and was transcribed in vitro with E. coli RNA polymerase core and purified SigG protein. Negative controls lacked SigG protein. The transcript was analyzed on a 5% denaturing gel. Lane M, RNA century marker (Ambion); lane 1, lexA promoter region template without SigG; lane 2: lexA promoter region template with SigG.
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FIG. 5. Expression of lexA and recA genes in the sigG mutant strain. Expression of lexA and recA in the mutant strain was determined by real-time RT-PCR methods. The cDNA was amplified with primers RT-lexA and RT-recA (see Table S1 in the supplemental material), and the CT value was normalized using the sigA value. Open bars, OD of 1; shaded bars, OD of 2.
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In a previous study lexA was found to contain an SOS box with the sequence TCGAACACATGTTTGA upstream of its promoter region (1). The SigG consensus binding site identified in this study was located upstream of this SOS box. This suggests that lexA transcription by SigG is limited to the SOS response and is controlled by sigG rather than the principal sigma factor. Many M. tuberculosis genes, such as dnaB (Rv0058), ruvA (Rv2593c), ruvC (Rv2594c), lexA (Rv2720), and recA (Rv2737c), have a putative LexA binding site which showed positive binding in a gel shift assay. However, the LexA protein does not bind the same consensus binding site in the promoter region of ssb (Rv0054), dinG (Rv1329c), recN (Rv1696), ruvB (Rv2592c), dinP (Rv3056), or dnaE2(Rv3370c) (1). These results are consistent with our microarray data (Table 1) since many of the same genes were underexpressed in the
sigG mutant.
The M. tuberculosis
sigG mutant is resistant to mitomycin C.
MMC is a potent SOS response inducer and has antibacterial activity against Mycobacterium bovis (14). MMC causes cell death during DNA damage, but there is also rescue due to DNA repair and the SOS response (error-prone response system). However, in the absence of LexA repression, the SOS system is constitutively expressed, and therefore lexA mutants have been demonstrated to display relative MMC resistance compared to the wild type (24). Therefore, we tested the MMC resistance of the M. tuberculosis
sigG strain. The
sigG mutant strain was treated with 0.2 and 1 µg/ml MMC. Using A600 to monitor growth, we found that the wild-type and complemented strains were more susceptible than the mutant to both 0.2 and 1.0 µg/ml MMC (Fig. 6). This study was repeated two times, and a similar pattern was observed. This indicates that deletion of sigG confers resistance to MMC. The CFU of bacteria were also counted after serial dilution (103- to 105-fold). For the
sigG strain the bacterial counts were 107 CFU/ml without MMC and 104 CFU/ml in the presence of 0.2 µg/ml MMC after 2 and 3 days. We did not detect the wild-type and complemented strains at this concentration. With a higher concentration of MMC, we did not detect any bacteria on the plates with the same dilution ratios. These data indicate that deletion of sigG confers resistance to MMC in M. tuberculosis.
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FIG. 6. Effect of MMC on the growth of the sigG mutant. Wild-type and sigG mutant strains were exposed to various concentrations of MMC, and the growth rate was determined using the OD at 600 nm at the time points indicated. Black circles, wild-type strain without MMC; black triangles, sigG strain without MMC; black squares, complemented strain without MMC; gray circles, wild-type strain with MMC (0.2 µg/ml); gray triangles, sigG strain with MMC (0.2 µg/ml); gray squares, complemented strain with MMC (0.2 µg/ml); open circles, wild-type strain with MMC (1 µg/ml); open triangles, sigG strain with MMC (1 µg/ml); open squares, complemented strain with MMC (1 µg/ml).
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sigG mutant to invade and survive within J774A.1 murine macrophages with that of its parental wild-type strain (CDC1551). The initial intracellular inoculum after 2 h of infection was about 103 CFU. As shown in Fig. 7, the
sigG mutant displayed impaired survival in the macrophage infection model at 3 days (P = 0.05) and 6 days (P = 0.01) postinfection. This result is consistent with the results of a previous study in which sigG was found to be one of the most induced genes during macrophage infection, with a relative increase in expression of 9.7-fold (2). The environment of the macrophage phagosome appears to be deficient in carbohydrate and imposes oxidative, nitrosative, and nutritional depletion stress conditions on bacteria (11, 19). We found that hsp (Rv0251c) expression was reduced in the
sigG mutant and that this gene is part of the sigG regulon (see Table S2 in the supplemental material). hsp genes are also induced in macrophages, and deletion of the hsp gene in M. tuberculosis causes attenuation in monocyte-derived macrophages (23). The hsp gene (Rv0251c) was reported to belong to the sigE regulon, and its expression was reduced by sigE deletion. However, we identified the sigG consensus promoter recognition sequence in the upstream region of the hsp gene, whose expression was also reduced by deletion of sigG. As determined by real-time RT-PCR, deletion of sigG led to a reduction in sigH expression, but it did not change the expression of sigE. These observations support the hypothesis that hsp is also regulated by sigG. Another sigG regulon gene, aceA, was induced in macrophages, and the deletion mutant showed attenuation in the macrophage infection model.
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FIG. 7. Growth of the M. tuberculosis sigG mutant in J774A.1 macrophages. The growth of wild-type and sigG strains in macrophages was examined. J774A.1 alveolar macrophages were cultivated in cRPMI (2 mM glutamine, 10% fetal bovine serum) with 5% CO2 at 37°C and activated with gamma interferon (500 U/ml) for 12 h, followed by lipopolysaccharide (200 ng/ml) for 3 h before infection, and 105 cells were infected with wild-type and mutant M. tuberculosis at a multiplicity of infection of 1:1. At 2 h, 3 days, and 6 days macrophage lysates were plated on 7H10 medium to count the surviving bacteria. , wild-type strain; , sigG strain; , complemented strain.
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In this study, we identified the significance of sigG during macrophage infection and in the SOS response. Genes regulated by the SigG sigma factor are important for M. tuberculosis survival inside macrophages and for SOS stress response-related functions.
Published ahead of print on 26 November 2007. ![]()
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/. ![]()
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