An Anthranilic Acid-responsive Transcriptional Regulator Controls the Physiology and Pathogenicity of Ralstonia Solanacearum

Overview

Journal PLoS Pathog

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2022 May 26

PMID 35617422

Authors

Shihao Song

Xiuyun Sun

Quan Guo

Binbin Cui

Yu Zhu

Xia Li

Jianuan Zhou

Lian-Hui Zhang

Yinyue Deng

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) is widely employed by bacterial cells to control gene expression in a cell density-dependent manner. A previous study revealed that anthranilic acid from Ralstonia solanacearum plays a vital role in regulating the physiology and pathogenicity of R. solanacearum. We reported here that anthranilic acid controls the important biological functions and virulence of R. solanacearum through the receptor protein RaaR, which contains helix-turn-helix (HTH) and LysR substrate binding (LysR_substrate) domains. RaaR regulates the same processes as anthranilic acid, and both are present in various bacterial species. In addition, anthranilic acid-deficient mutant phenotypes were rescued by in trans expression of RaaR. Intriguingly, we found that anthranilic acid binds to the LysR_substrate domain of RaaR with high affinity, induces allosteric conformational changes, and then enhances the binding of RaaR to the promoter DNA regions of target genes. These findings indicate that the components of the anthranilic acid signaling system are distinguished from those of the typical QS systems. Together, our work presents a unique and widely conserved signaling system that might be an important new type of cell-to-cell communication system in bacteria.

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