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Volume 149, Issue 10

The curli biosynthesis regulator CsgD co-ordinates the expression of both positive and negative determinants for biofilm formation in Free

Abstract

Production of curli, extracellular structures important for biofilm formation, is positively regulated by OmpR, which constitutes with the EnvZ protein an osmolarity-sensing two-component regulatory system. The expression of curli is cryptic in most laboratory strains such as MG1655, due to the lack of expression. The gene encodes a transcription activator of the curli-subunit-encoding operon. The up-mutation can restore expression, resulting in curli production and increased biofilm formation. In this report, it is shown that -dependent expression, in addition to activation during stationary phase of growth, stimulates expression of the gene and negatively regulates at least two other genes, and . The promoter regions of these four genes share a conserved 11 bp sequence (CGGGKGAKNKA), necessary for and regulation by CsgD. While at both the and promoters the sequence is located upstream of the promoter elements, in both and it overlaps either the putative −10 sequence or the transcription start point, suggesting that CsgD can function as both an activator and a repressor. Adhesion experiments show that -independent expression of both and from a multicopy plasmid negatively affects biofilm formation, which, in contrast, is stimulated by expression. Thus it is proposed that CsgD stimulates biofilm formation in by contemporary activation of adhesion positive determinants (the curli-encoding operons and the product of the gene) and repression of negative effectors such as and .

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2003-10-01
2024-04-16
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The curli biosynthesis regulator CsgD co-ordinates the expression of both positive and negative determinants for biofilm formation in Escherichia coli
Microbiology 149, 2847 (2003); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.26306-0
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