Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P51532 (transcriptional activator)
 6,546 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 74-kDa iron-regulated outer membrane protein of Vibrio cholerae acts as the receptor for the V. cholerae iron-siderophore complex, ferric vibriobactin. MBG14, a mutant of V. cholerae 0395 containing a TnphoA insertion in a gene designated viuA, lacks this 74-kDa outer membrane protein and is unable to bind or utilize exogenous ferric vibriobactin. Introduction of a plasmid containing the complete viuA coding sequence and 513 bp of upstream DNA into MBG14 restored ferric vibriobactin utilization to the mutant. The DNA insert in this plasmid was sequenced, revealing a single open reading frame of 2,061 bp, encoding a deduced protein of 687 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 76,417 Da and a predicted initial signal sequence of 37 amino acids. ViuA showed only weak homology to two iron-regulated outer membrane proteins in Escherichia coli, IutA and FecA. Construction of viuA::TnphoA gene fusions allowed study of the regulation of viuA expression by iron. This regulation in E. coli was dependent on the fur gene. Northern (RNA) blot analysis of RNA from wild-type V. cholerae grown in high- and low-iron media revealed a monocistronic viuA message that was negatively regulated by iron at the transcriptional level. Primer extension analysis identified a single transcriptional start site, located 243 bp above the translational start site. The promoter region of viuA contained two interrupted dyad symmetric nucleotide sequences, overlapping the -10 and -35 boxes, each similar to the E. coli Fur binding consensus sequence. Another iron-regulated gene in V. cholerae that is negatively regulated by fur, irgA, requires a positive transcriptional activator (irgB) for expression. However, a strain of V. cholerae mutant in irgB was unaffected in viuA expression. These studies suggest that there is conserved, global coordinate iron regulation in V. cholerae by fur; additional regulatory factors, superimposed upon the fur system, may provide more precise control of individual iron-regulated genes.
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PMID:Cloning, sequencing, and transcriptional regulation of viuA, the gene encoding the ferric vibriobactin receptor of Vibrio cholerae. 131 81

The Vibrio cholerae acfA, B, C, and D genes are involved in the synthesis of a colonization factor; their expression is under the control of ToxR, the cholera toxin transcriptional activator. By a combination of Southern blot analysis, cloning, and nucleotide sequence analysis, we determined that the acf genes are clustered on a 5-kb region, the acfA and acfD genes are transcribed divergently, and the translation start sites of the two genes are separated by only 173 bp. Expression from the acfA and acfD promoters in V. cholerae was studied by using acfA:phoA translational and acfD-lacZ transcriptional fusions; when carried by the chromosome, the acfA-acfD intergenic region flanked by the two reporter genes was found to contain the cis-acting element(s) necessary for the environmental regulation of the two promoters. However, this regulation was almost completely abolished when the same construction was carried by a low-copy-number plasmid. These results suggested that differences in DNA topology between the plasmid versus the chromosomal constructs might influence the expression of the acfA and acfD promoters. Support for this conclusion was obtained by showing that ToxR-dependent but not basal expression of both promoters was strongly inhibited by nalidixic acid and novobiocin, two DNA gyrase inhibitors, suggesting that the activation of these promoters is affected by changes in DNA supercoiling. Expression of the acfA and acfD promoters was also investigated in the heterologous host Escherichia coli harboring plasmids expressing either ToxR or ToxT, two transcriptional activators of the V. cholerae virulence genes. ToxR activated the acfD promoter 2.5-fold but inhibited the acfA promoter 2-fold. In contrast, the expression of the acfA promoter was activated 10-fold and that of the acfD promoter was activated 3-fold by ToxT, supporting the previously proposed cascade model for organization of the ToxR regulon.
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PMID:Structural analysis of the acfA and acfD genes of Vibrio cholerae: effects of DNA topology and transcriptional activators on expression. 164 47

We have previously described a virulence gene in Vibrio cholerae (irgA) that is more than 850-fold regulated in response to iron. Negative regulation of irgA by iron occurred at the transcriptional level, and there was a dyad symmetric nucleotide sequence in the vicinity of the irgA promoter homologous to the Fur binding site in Escherichia coli. When irgA was cloned into E. coli, we showed that transcription of irgA required 900 base pairs of DNA upstream of the irgA promoter that contained an open reading frame in inverse orientation to irgA. In the present study, we show that this upstream region of DNA encodes a gene in inverse orientation to irgA (named irgB) that is also negatively regulated by iron. Insertional inactivation of irgB on the V. cholerae chromosome leads to loss of expression of a chromosomal irgA'-'phoA fusion (in which the primes indicate truncated genes), which is restored to normal by provision of irgB on a plasmid in trans. DNA sequencing of irgB shows that the protein product (IrgB) is homologous to the LysR family of positive transcriptional activators, and secondary structure analysis of IrgB predicts a helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. The promoters of irgB and irgA are divergent but overlap each other and the previously defined Fur-binding site. We propose a model for iron regulation of irgA expression in V. cholerae. In the presence of sufficient iron, transcription of both irgA and irgB is negatively regulated by a Fur-like protein. In low iron conditions, negative regulation of transcription is removed, and production of IrgB leads to positive transcriptional activation of irgA. It seems likely that the high induction ratio of irgA expression under low- and high-iron conditions (850-fold) relates to the fact that its cognate positive transcriptional activator (irgB) is itself negatively regulated by iron.
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PMID:Positive transcriptional regulation of an iron-regulated virulence gene in Vibrio cholerae. 170 25

The toxR gene of Vibrio cholerae encodes a transcriptional activator required for the expression of the cholera toxin genes (ctxAB) and more than 15 other genes encoding secreted or membrane proteins. The latter group includes virulence genes involved in the biogenesis of the TCP pilus, the accessory colonization factor, and such ToxR-activated genes as tagA, mutations in which cause no detectable virulence defect in the suckling mouse model. To analyze the regulation of expression and the structure of tagA, we have cloned and sequenced about 2 kb of DNA upstream from a tagA::TnphoA fusion. While the portion of the tagA gene product examined presented no extensive similarity to any known protein, the amino acid sequence deduced from an open reading frame (designated aldA) located upstream from and in opposite orientation to tagA was highly similar to the sequences of eukaryotic aldehyde dehydrogenases. An assay of aldehyde dehydrogenase activity in extracts of a wild-type V. cholerae strainand an aldA mutant confirmed that aldA encodes an aldehyde dehydrogenase. Expression of the aldA gene was studied together with that of tagA in both V. cholerae and Escherichia coli. The expression of both tagA and aldA was environmentally regulated and dependent on a functional toxR gene in V. cholerae, but neither promoter was activated by ToxR in E. coli, suggesting that expression of tagA and aldA requires an additional transcriptional activator besides ToxR. The aldA gene is the first example of a gene encoding a cytoplasmic protein that is under the control of ToxR, and this suggests that metabolic enzymes may constitute novel members of virulence regulons in bacteria.
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PMID:Expression of the Vibrio cholerae gene encoding aldehyde dehydrogenase is under control of ToxR, the cholera toxin transcriptional activator. 190 10

The genes encoding three lipoproteins of Vibrio cholerae were identified by a combination of DNA sequence analysis and [3H]palmitate labeling of hybrid proteins encoded by TnphoA gene fusions. The expression of these three lipoproteins, TagA, AcfD, and TcpC, was controlled by ToxR, the cholera toxin transcriptional activator. The involvement of other bacterial lipoproteins in conferring resistance to the bactericidal effects of complement prompted us to examine this possibility in V. cholerae. Remarkably, mutations in toxR and tcp genes (including tcpC), involved in the biogenesis of the toxin coregulated pili, rendered V. cholerae about 10(4)-10(6) times more sensitive to the vibriocidal activity of antibody and complement. Since V. cholerae is a noninvasive organism and toxR and tcp mutants are highly defective in intestinal colonization in animals and humans, these results raise the possibility that resistance to a gut-associated, "complement-like" bactericidal activity may be a major virulence determinant of V. cholerae and other enterobacterial species.
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PMID:ToxR regulates the production of lipoproteins and the expression of serum resistance in Vibrio cholerae. 200 Mar 74

We describe the cloning of the toxS gene from Vibrio cholerae E1 Tor strain E7946. This gene lies downstream from the toxR gene, which encodes the transcriptional activator for the cholera toxin (ctx) operon in V. cholerae. We show that ToxS acts in conjunction with ToxR to activate expression of the ctx operon in Escherichia coli. The classical strain 569B, which is attenuated for virulance but which synthesizes high levels of cholera toxin in vitro, carries a deletion of 1.2 kilobase pairs of DNA, downstream from the toxR gene, which removes toxS. We present evidence that toxS is the downstream gene in an operon with toxR.
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PMID:Identification of toxS, a regulatory gene whose product enhances toxR-mediated activation of the cholera toxin promoter. 264 75

The transposon TnphoA was used to generate fusions between phoA, the gene for alkaline phosphatase (PhoA), and genes encoding proteins that are secreted by Vibrio cholerae. One of the PhoA+ mutants isolated showed a dramatic reduction in its ability to colonize the intestines of suckling mice. This mutant no longer produced a 20.5-kDa protein (TcpA) that we show is the major subunit of a V. cholerae pilus. Amino-terminal sequence analysis of the TcpA pilus subunit showed that it shares amino acid homology with the pilins produced by several other pathogenic bacteria. The TcpA pilus was coordinately expressed with cholera toxin under various culture conditions, and this effect appeared to be dependent on the transcriptional activator encoded by the toxR gene. We conclude that the toxR gene plays a central role in the transcriptional regulation of multiple virulence genes of V. cholerae.
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PMID:Use of phoA gene fusions to identify a pilus colonization factor coordinately regulated with cholera toxin. 288 55

A gene fusion library of Vibrio cholerae classical strain O395 was generated by using a broad host range vector for delivery of the transposon TnphoA. The insertion library was screened for colonies expressing alkaline phosphatase-positive (PhoA+) fusion proteins on LB agar at 30 degrees C in the presence of 0.2% glucose. Over 600 PhoA+ strains were isolated and then tested for regulation of their gene fusions in broth media that permitted high or low expression of cholera toxin. This strategy resulted in the isolation of 60 TnphoA (Tn5 IS50L::phoA) fusions to genes encoding secreted proteins that are apparently coordinately regulated with cholera toxin. Introduction of a toxR null mutation into 10 of these fusion strains confirmed that these TnphoA gene fusions are controlled either directly or indirectly by the cholera toxin transcriptional activator encoded by toxR. A combination of Southern and immunoblot analysis identified 17 distinct ToxR-regulated genes in V. cholerae O395. Many of these insertions were located in one of the two cholera toxin operon copies of strain O395, as well as a large gene cluster involved in the biogenesis of the toxin-coregulated pilus colonization factor. In addition, insertions were identified in genes that had no effect on either cholera toxin or toxin-coregulated pilus expression. Several of these insertions were localized to a cluster of four genes, the disruption of any of which by TnphoA reduced the ability of strain O395 to colonize the intestines of suckling mice. The product encoded by this second gene cluster was named accessory colonization factor to describe its possible role in cholera pathogenesis. These studies reinforce the contribution of ToxR-regulated genes to the virulence properties of V. cholerae. This report also demonstrates a new approach for the identification of bacterial virulence factors, based on the characterization of genes that are regulated by the same environmental signals that control the expression of a known virulence factor.
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PMID:Characterization of the Vibrio cholerae ToxR regulon: identification of novel genes involved in intestinal colonization. 290 9

The toxR gene encodes a transcriptional activator controlling cholera toxin, pilus, and outer-membrane protein expression in V. cholerae. Nucleotide sequence and mutational analysis has identified the toxR gene product as a 32,527 dalton protein. Hydropathicity analysis of the derived amino acid sequence of ToxR predicts a transmembrane structure. The properties of hybrid proteins composed of N-terminal fragments of ToxR fused to the periplasmic enzyme alkaline phosphatase provide additional evidence for the transmembrane topology of the ToxR protein. These fusion proteins also allowed the localization of the transcriptional activation and DNA binding domains of the ToxR protein to its cytoplasmically located N-terminal portion. DNA binding assays and a deletion analysis of the cholera toxin promoter support a model for transcriptional activation that involves ToxR binding to a tandemly repeated 7 bp DNA sequence 56 bp upstream of the transcriptional start point.
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PMID:Cholera toxin transcriptional activator toxR is a transmembrane DNA binding protein. 380 95

The Vibrio cholerae fur gene was previously cloned and sequenced. A putative Fur box was identified in the divergent promoters of irgA, a virulence factor of V. cholerae, and irgB, a transcriptional activator of irgA. In this work, V. cholerae Fur was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and purified to approximately 95% homogeneity. The purified protein bound a DNA fragment containing the irgA-irgB promoter in a gel shift assay. The purified protein was used to raise monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies to V. cholerae Fur, and a Fur sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was developed to estimate the intracellular abundance of Fur under a variety of growth conditions. The number of Fur molecules per cell during exponential growth was approximately 2,500, which is higher than most measurements for other bacterial repressors but comparable to the intracellular concentration of the leucine-responsive regulatory protein. The number of Fur molecules per cell increased in the late logarithmic and stationary phases. Growth of V. cholerae in low-iron medium did not alter the intracellular abundance of Fur significantly. Growth under microaerophilic conditions resulted in a significant, approximately twofold decrease in the intracellular levels of Fur. The measurements of intracellular Fur abundance indicate that a large amount of this repressor is produced constitutively and that the concentration of Fur in the cell varies by less than a factor of 2 under the conditions studied. We hypothesize that the high constitutive expression of Fur is necessary for its role as an iron-responsive regulator.
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PMID:Purification of Vibrio cholerae fur and estimation of its intracellular abundance by antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. 898 4


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