Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 84: Overexpression of the Bacteriophage T4 motB Gene Alters H-NS Dependent Repression of Specific Host DNA

Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 84: Overexpression of the Bacteriophage T4 motB Gene Alters H-NS Dependent Repression of Specific Host DNA Viruses doi: 10.3390/v13010084 Authors: Jennifer Patterson-West Chin-Hsien Tai Bokyung Son Meng-Lun Hsieh James R. Iben Deborah M. Hinton The bacteriophage T4 early gene product MotB binds tightly but nonspecifically to DNA, copurifies with the host Nucleoid Associated Protein (NAP) H-NS in the presence of DNA and improves T4 fitness. However, the T4 transcriptome is not significantly affected by a motB knockdown. Here we have investigated the phylogeny of MotB and its predicted domains, how MotB and H-NS together interact with DNA, and how heterologous overexpression of motB impacts host gene expression. We find that motB is highly conserved among Tevenvirinae. Although the MotB sequence has no homology to proteins of known function, predicted structure homology searches suggest that MotB is composed of an N-terminal Kyprides-Onzonis-Woese (KOW) motif and a C-terminal DNA-binding domain of oligonucleotide/oligosaccharide (OB)-fold; either of which could provide MotB’s ability to bind DNA. DNase I footprinting demonstrates that MotB dramatically alters the interaction of H-NS with DNA in vitro. RNA-seq analyses indicate that expression of plasmid-borne motB up-regulates 75 host genes; no host genes are down-regulated. Approximately 1/3 of the up-regulated genes have previously been shown to be part of the H-NS regul...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research
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