1. Upregulation of a histone-like protein in dormant Mycobacterium smegmatis
- Author
-
B. Murugasu-Oei, Boon Heng Lee, and Thomas Dick
- Subjects
MAP Kinase Kinase 4 ,Sequence analysis ,Molecular Sequence Data ,Mycobacterium smegmatis ,medicine.disease_cause ,Microbiology ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Bacterial Proteins ,Downregulation and upregulation ,Genetics ,medicine ,Amino Acid Sequence ,Anaerobiosis ,Cloning, Molecular ,Molecular Biology ,Peptide sequence ,Gene ,Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinases ,Gel electrophoresis ,Mutation ,Base Sequence ,Sequence Homology, Amino Acid ,biology ,fungi ,JNK Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases ,Nuclear Proteins ,Sequence Analysis, DNA ,biology.organism_classification ,Molecular biology ,Up-Regulation ,DNA-Binding Proteins ,chemistry ,Protein Kinases ,DNA - Abstract
The aerobic saprophyte Mycobacterium smegmatis, like its pathogenic counterpart M. tuberculosis, has the ability to adapt to anaerobiosis by shifting down to a dormant state. Here, we report the identification and molecular genetic characterisation of the first dormancy-induced protein in M. smegmatis. Comparative SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of protein extracts of aerobically growing and dormant anaerobic M. smegmatis cultures revealed the upregulation of a 27-kDa protein in the dormant state. Peptide sequencing showed that the induced protein is a homologue of the histone-like protein H1p, predicted by the M. tuberculosis genome project. The corresponding hlp gene was cloned from M. smegmatis and sequenced. Disruption of the hlp gene eliminated the histone-like protein but did not affect the viability of the dormant culture.
- Published
- 1998