Abstract
The accessory gene regulator (agr) quorum sensing system in staphylococci is responsible for the regulation of surface proteins and exoproteins, including many virulence factors in the pathogenic species Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis. Strain S. epidermidis Tü3298 produces the lantibiotic epidermin. An isogenic agr deletion mutant of this strain showed a strong reduction of epidermin production. Detailed analysis of the impact of agr on epidermin biosynthesis revealed that agr does not interfere with the transcription of epidermin biosynthetic genes, but controls the extracellular processing of the N-terminal leader peptide by the EpiP protease.
Publication types
-
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
-
Amino Acid Sequence
-
Bacterial Proteins / biosynthesis*
-
Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
-
Bacterial Proteins / genetics
-
Bacterial Proteins / metabolism
-
Bacteriocins
-
Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel
-
Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
-
Genes, Bacterial / genetics
-
Molecular Sequence Data
-
Peptides / chemistry
-
Peptides / genetics
-
Peptides / metabolism*
-
Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics
-
Protein Precursors / chemistry
-
Protein Precursors / metabolism*
-
Protein Processing, Post-Translational*
-
Sequence Deletion / genetics
-
Staphylococcus epidermidis / genetics
-
Staphylococcus epidermidis / metabolism*
Substances
-
Bacterial Proteins
-
Bacteriocins
-
Peptides
-
Protein Precursors
-
epidermin