Premium
Variable expression of the Opc outer membrane protein in Neisseria meningitidis is caused by size variation of a promoter containing poly‐cytidine
Author(s) -
Sarkari Jasmine,
Pandit Niketan,
Moxon E. Richard,
Achtman Mark
Publication year - 1994
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.1365-2958.1994.tb00416.x
Subject(s) - biology , cytidine , phase variation , neisseria meningitidis , transcription (linguistics) , coding region , dna , microbiology and biotechnology , cytidine deaminase , nucleotide , bacterial outer membrane , gene , gene expression , genetics , biochemistry , escherichia coli , bacteria , enzyme , phenotype , linguistics , philosophy
Summary Opa proteins of Neisseria meningitidis exhibit translational phase variation via addition or deletion of repetitive coding repeat units within the DNA encoding the protein leader sequence. In contrast, Opc phase variation is the result of transcriptional regulation. Transcription starts 13 nucleotides after the ‐10 region of an unusual promoter sequence containing a variable number of contiguous cytidine residues and lacking a ‐ 35 region. Efficient expression of Opc occurred in strains with 12 to 13 cytidine residues, intermediate expression in strains with 11 or 14 residues and no expression with ≤ 10 or ≥ 15 residues. This unusual regulation may have evolved because the Opc protein enables meningococcal invasion and is immunogenic.