This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sanjuan, E.
Right arrow Articles by Seshu, J.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sanjuan, E.
Right arrow Articles by Seshu, J.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Infection and Immunity, November 2009, p. 5149-5162, Vol. 77, No. 11
0019-9567/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.00673-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Overexpression of CsrA (BB0184) Alters the Morphology and Antigen Profiles of Borrelia burgdorferi{triangledown}

Eva Sanjuan, Maria D. Esteve-Gassent, Mahulena Maruskova, and J. Seshu*

South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases and Department of Biology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249

Received 11 June 2009/ Returned for modification 7 July 2009/ Accepted 28 August 2009

Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease, alters its gene expression in response to highly disparate environmental signals encountered in its hosts. Among the relatively few regulators of adaptive gene expression present in the borrelial genome is an open reading frame (ORF), BB0184, annotated as CsrA (carbon storage regulator A). CsrA, in several bacterial species, has been characterized as a small RNA binding protein that functions as a global regulator affecting mRNA stability or levels of translation of multiple ORFs. Consistent with known functions of CsrA, overexpression of CsrA from B. burgdorferi (CsrABb) in Escherichia coli resulted in reduced accumulation of glycogen. We determined that csrABb is part of the flgK motility operon and that the synthesis of CsrABb was increased when B. burgdorferi was propagated under fed-tick conditions. Overexpression of CsrABb in B. burgdorferi strain B31 (ML23, lp25-negative clonal isolate) resulted in a clone, designated ES25, which exhibited alterations in colony morphology and a significant reduction in the levels of FlaB. Several lipoproteins previously characterized as playing a role in infectivity were also altered in ES25. Real-time reverse transcription-PCR analysis of RNA revealed significant differences in the transcriptional levels of ospC in ES25, while there were no such differences in the levels of other transcripts, suggesting posttranscriptional regulation of expression of these latter genes. These observations indicate that CsrABb plays a role in the regulation of expression of pathophysiological determinants of B. burgdorferi, and further characterization of CsrABb will help in better understanding of the regulators of gene expression in B. burgdorferi.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: BSE 3.230, Department of Biology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249. Phone: (210) 458-6578. Fax: (210) 458-5658. E-mail: j.seshu{at}utsa.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 8 September 2009.

Editor: A. J. Bäumler

Infection and Immunity, November 2009, p. 5149-5162, Vol. 77, No. 11
0019-9567/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.00673-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»