EbfC (YbaB) Is a New Type of Bacterial Nucleoid-Associated Protein and a Global Regulator of Gene Expression in the Lyme Disease Spirochete

• Published in: Journal of Bacteriology 2012-07, Vol.194 (13), p.3395-3406
• Main Authors: Jutras, Brandon L, Bowman, Amy, Brissette, Catherine A, Adams, Claire A, Verma, Ashutosh, Chenail, Alicia M, Stevenson, Brian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: bacteria; Bacterial diseases; Bacterial proteins; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - metabolism; Bacteriology; Base Sequence; Biological and medical sciences; Borrelia burgdorferi; Borrelia burgdorferi - genetics; Borrelia burgdorferi - growth & development; Borrelia burgdorferi - metabolism; Borrelia infections; Cell Nucleolus; chromatin; Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA, Bacterial - genetics; DNA, Bacterial - metabolism; DNA-binding proteins; DNA-Binding Proteins - genetics; DNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Eubacteria; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; Human bacterial diseases; Infectious diseases; Lyme disease; Lyme Disease - microbiology; Medical sciences; messenger RNA; Microbiology; Miscellaneous; Molecular Sequence Data; mutants; pathogens; precipitin tests; regulator genes; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Sequence Analysis, RNA; Tropical bacterial diseases
• ISSN: 0021-9193; 1067-8832; 1098-5530
• DOI: 10.1128/JB.00252-12

Nearly every known species of Eubacteria encodes a homolog of the Borrelia burgdorferi EbfC DNA-binding protein. We now demonstrate that fluorescently tagged EbfC associates with B. burgdorferi nucleoids in vivo and that chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of wild-type EbfC showed it to bind in vivo to sites throughout the genome, two hallmarks of nucleoid-associated proteins. Comparative RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) of a mutant B. burgdorferi strain that overexpresses EbfC indicated that approximately 4.5% of borrelial genes are significantly impacted by EbfC. The ebfC gene was highly expressed in rapidly growing bacteria, but ebfC mRNA was undetectable in stationary phase. Combined with previous data showing that EbfC induces bends in DNA, these results demonstrate that EbfC is a nucleoid-associated protein and lead to the hypothesis that B. burgdorferi utilizes cellular fluctuations in EbfC levels to globally control transcription of numerous genes. The ubiquity of EbfC proteins in Eubacteria suggests that these results apply to a wide range of pathogens and other bacteria.