Brucella MucR acts as an H-NS-like protein to silence virulence genes and structure the nucleoid

• Published in: mBio Vol. 14; no. 6; p. e0220123
• Main Authors: Barton, Ian S, Ren, Zhongqing, Cribb, Connor B, Pitzer, Joshua E, Baglivo, Ilaria, Martin, Daniel W, Wang, Xindan, Roop, 2nd, R Martin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Society for Microbiology 19.12.2023
• Subjects: Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - metabolism; Brucella; counter-silencer; DNA-Binding Proteins - genetics; DNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; Gene Silencing; Genetics and Molecular Biology; H-NS; H-NS-like; MucR; Research Article; virulence; Virulence - genetics; Virulence Factors - genetics; Virulence Factors - metabolism; H-NS-like; MucR; virulence; Hi-C; Brucella; ChIP-seq; nucleoid structuring; H-NS; counter-silencer
• ISSN: 2150-7511; 2150-7511
• DOI: 10.1128/mbio.02201-23

Histone-like nucleoid structuring (H-NS) and H-NS-like proteins coordinate host-associated behaviors in many pathogenic bacteria, often through forming silencer/counter-silencer pairs with signal-responsive transcriptional activators to tightly control gene expression. and related bacteria do not encode H-NS or homologs of known H-NS-like proteins, and it is unclear if they have other proteins that perform analogous functions during pathogenesis. In this work, we provide compelling evidence for the role of MucR as a novel H-NS-like protein in . We show that MucR possesses many of the known functions attributed to H-NS and H-NS-like proteins, including the formation of silencer/counter-silencer pairs to control virulence gene expression and global structuring of the nucleoid. These results uncover a new role for MucR as a nucleoid structuring protein and support the importance of temporal control of gene expression in and related bacteria.