Borrelia burgdorferi cp32 BpaB modulates expression of the prophage NucP nuclease and SsbP single-stranded DNA-binding protein

Alicia M. Chenail, Brandon L. Jutras, Claire A. Adams, Logan H. Burns, Amy Bowman, Ashutosh Verma, Brian Stevenson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Borrelia burgdorferi BpaB proteins of the spirochete's ubiquitous cp32 prophages are DNA-binding proteins, required both for maintenance of the bacteriophage episomes and for transcriptional regulation of the cp32 erp operons. Through use of DNase I footprinting, we demonstrate that BpaB binds the erp operator initially at the sequence 5'-TTATA-3'. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays indicated that BpaB also binds with high affinity to sites located in the 5' noncoding regionsof two additional cp32 genes. Characterization of the proteins encoded by those genes indicated that they are a single-stranded DNA-binding protein and a nuclease, which we named SsbP and NucP, respectively. Chromatin immunoprecipitation indicated that BpaB binds erp, ssbP, and nucP in live B. burgdorferi. A mutant bacterium that overexpressed BpaB produced significantly higher levels of ssbP and nucP transcript than did the wild-type parent.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4570-4578
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of bacteriology
Volume194
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2012

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Microbiology
  • Molecular Biology

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