Nucleic Acids Research, Vol 25, Issue 7 1362-1368, Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press
LA Wainwright, JV Frangipane and HS Seifert
Antigenic variation of the pilus is an essential component of Neisseria
gonorrhoeae pathogenesis. Unidirectional recombination of silent pilin DNA
into an expressed pilin gene allows for substantial sequence variation of
this highly immunogenic surface structure. While the RecA protein is
required for pilin gene recombination, the factors which maintain the
silent reservoir of pilin sequences and/or allow unidirectional
recombination from silent to expression loci remain undefined. We have
previously shown that a conserved sequence at the 3'end of all pilin loci
(the Sma/Cla repeat) is required to be present at the expression locus for
efficient recombination from the silent loci. In this study, the binding of
gonococcal proteins to this DNA sequence was investigated. Gel mobility
shift assays and competition experiments using deletion derivatives of the
repeat, show that multiple activities bind to different regions of the
Sma/Cla repeat and define the boundaries of the binding sequences.
Moreover, only the pathogenic Neisseria harbor proteins which specifically
bind to this repeat, suggesting a correlation between the expression of
these DNA binding proteins and the potential to cause disease.
ARTICLES
Analysis of protein binding to the Sma/Cla DNA repeat in pathogenic Neisseriae
Northwestern University Medical School, Department of Microbiology- Immunology, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
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