Chemotaxis proteins and transducers for aerotaxis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Hong Chang Soo

Shitashiro Maiko

Kuroda Akio

Ikeda Tsukasa

Takiguchi Noboru

Ohtake Hisao

Kato Junichi

FEMS microbiology letters

It was previously shown that the chemotaxis gene cluster 1 (cheYZABW) was required for chemotaxis. In this study, the involvement of the same cluster in aerotaxis is described and two transducer genes for aerotaxis are identified. Aerotaxis assays of a number of deletion–insertion mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 revealed that the chemotaxis gene cluster 1 and cheR are required for aerotaxis. Mutant strains which contained deletions in the methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein-like genes tlpC and tlpG showed decreased aerotaxis. A double mutant deficient in tlpC and tlpG was negative for aerotaxis. TlpC has 45 0x1.e0b6p-891mino acid identity with the Escherichia coli aerotactic transducer Aer. The TlpG protein has a predicted C-terminal segment with 89 0dentity to the highly conserved domain of the E. coli serine chemoreceptor Tsr. A hydropathy plot of TlpG indicated that hydrophobic membrane-spanning regions are missing in TlpG. A PAS motif was found in the N-terminal domains of TlpC and TlpG. On this basis, the tlpC and tlpG genes were renamed aer and aer-2, respectively. No significant homology other than the PAS motif was detected in the N-terminal domains between Aer and Aer-2.

Aerotaxis

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Chemotaxis

Behavioral response

Transducer

Biology [ 460 ]

eng

Elsevier Science B.V.

Copyright (c) 2004 Federation of European Microbiological Societies.

[ISSN] 0378-1097

[DOI] 10.1016/S0378-1097(04)00009-6

[PMID] 14987771

[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-1097(04)00009-6 isVersionOf