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Scientific article
English

CodY in Staphylococcus aureus: a regulatory link between metabolism and virulence gene expression

Contributors

Pohl, Konstanze; Francois, Patrice; Stenz, Ludwig; Schlink, Frank; Geiger, Tobias; Herbert, Silvia; Goerke, Christiane; Schrenzel, Jacques; Wolz, Christiane

Published in

Journal of bacteriology, vol. 191, no. 9, p. 2953-2963

Publication date

2009

Abstract

The repressor CodY is reported to inhibit metabolic genes mainly involved in nitrogen metabolism. We analyzed codY mutants from three unrelated Staphylococcus aureus strains (Newman, UAMS-1, and RN1HG). The mutants grew more slowly than their parent strains in a chemically defined medium. However, only codY mutants were able to grow in medium lacking threonine. An excess of isoleucine resulted in growth inhibition in the wild type but not in the codY mutants, indicating that isoleucine plays a role in CodY-dependent repression. Prototypic CodY-repressed genes including the virulence regulator agr are repressed after up-shift with isoleucine. The CodY-dependent repression of agr is consistent with the concomitant influence of CodY on typical agr-regulated genes such as cap, spa, fnbA, and coa. However, some of these virulence genes (e.g., cap, fnbA, and spa) were also regulated by CodY in an agr-negative background. Microarray analysis revealed that the large majority of CodY-repressed genes were involved in amino acid metabolism; CodY-activated genes were mainly involved in nucleotide metabolism or virulence. In summary, CodY in S. aureus not only acts as a repressor for genes involved in nitrogen metabolism but also contributes to virulence gene regulation by supporting as well as substituting for agr function.

Keywords

  • Bacterial Proteins/biosynthesis/genetics/physiology
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
  • Isoleucine/metabolism
  • Mutation
  • Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
  • Repressor Proteins/genetics/physiology
  • Staphylococcus aureus/metabolism/pathogenicity/physiology
  • Threonine/metabolism
  • Trans-Activators/biosynthesis
  • Virulence
  • Virulence Factors/biosynthesis

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

POHL, Konstanze et al. CodY in Staphylococcus aureus: a regulatory link between metabolism and virulence gene expression. In: Journal of bacteriology, 2009, vol. 191, n° 9, p. 2953–2963. doi: 10.1128/JB.01492-08

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Identifiers

Additional URL for this publication

http://jb.asm.org/cgi/content/full/191/9/2953?view=long&pmid=19251851

Journal ISSN

0021-9193
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Technical informations

Creation

23/03/2010 09:57:00

First validation

23/03/2010 09:57:00

Update

13/01/2025 13:56:06

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