MucR from : New Insights into Its DNA Targets and Its Ability to Oligomerize

Proteins of the MucR/Ros family play a crucial role in bacterial infection or symbiosis with eukaryotic hosts. MucR from plays a regulatory role in establishing symbiosis with the host plant, both dependent and independent of Quorum Sensing. Here, we report the first characterization of MucR isolated from by mass spectrometry and demonstrate that this protein forms higher-order oligomers in its native condition of expression by SEC-MALS. We show that MucR purified from can bind DNA and recognize the region upstream of the gene in EMSA, revealing that this gene is a direct target of MucR. Although MucR DNA binding activity was already described, a detailed characterization of DNA targets has never been reported. We, thus, analyze sequences recognized by MucR in the gene promoter, showing that this protein recognizes AT-rich sequences and does not require a consensus sequence to bind DNA. Furthermore, we investigate the dependence of MucR DNA binding on the length of DNA targets. Taken together, our studies establish MucR from as a member of a new family of Histone-like Nucleoid Structuring (H-NS) proteins, thus explaining the multifaceted role of this protein in many species of alpha-proteobacteria.