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Expression and mutational analysis of the nucleoid‐associated protein H‐NS of Salmonella typhimurium
Author(s) -
Hinton Jay C. D.,
Santos Diogenes S.,
Seirafi Alexander,
Hulton Christopher S. J.,
Pavitt Graham D.,
Higgins Christopher F.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
molecular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 247
eISSN - 1365-2958
pISSN - 0950-382X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2958.1992.tb01408.x
Subject(s) - biology , nucleoid , salmonella , genetics , protein expression , escherichia coli , microbiology and biotechnology , computational biology , bacteria , gene
Summary The H‐NS (H1) protein is a major component of bacterial chromatin. Mutations in the hns (osmZ) gene encoding H‐NS are highly pleiotropic, affecting the expression of many unrelated genes in an allele‐specific manner. H‐NS expression was found not to vary with growth phase or growth medium osmolarity. Additionally, 10 independent hns mutations were isolated and characterized. Five of these mutations were the result of an IS 10 insertion, each generating a truncated polypeptide. The other five mutations were the same specific deletion of one amino acid, δla 46 . The various hns mutations exhibited different phenotypes and influenced ONA topology to variable extents. Implications for the mechanism by which H‐NS influences gene expression are discussed.