Bacillus licheniformis Contains Two More PerR-Like Proteins in Addition to PerR, Fur, and Zur Orthologues

PLoS One. 2016 May 13;11(5):e0155539. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155539. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

The ferric uptake regulator (Fur) family proteins include sensors of Fe (Fur), Zn (Zur), and peroxide (PerR). Among Fur family proteins, Fur and Zur are ubiquitous in most prokaryotic organisms, whereas PerR exists mainly in Gram positive bacteria as a functional homologue of OxyR. Gram positive bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus encode three Fur family proteins: Fur, Zur, and PerR. In this study, we identified five Fur family proteins from B. licheniformis: two novel PerR-like proteins (BL00690 and BL00950) in addition to Fur (BL05249), Zur (BL03703), and PerR (BL00075) homologues. Our data indicate that all of the five B. licheniformis Fur homologues contain a structural Zn2+ site composed of four cysteine residues like many other Fur family proteins. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the PerR-like proteins (BL00690 and BL00950) as well as PerRBL (BL00075), but not FurBL (BL05249) and ZurBL (BL03703), can sense H2O2 by histidine oxidation with different sensitivity. We also show that PerR2 (BL00690) has a PerR-like repressor activity for PerR-regulated genes in vivo. Taken together, our results suggest that B. licheniformis contains three PerR subfamily proteins which can sense H2O2 by histidine oxidation not by cysteine oxidation, in addition to Fur and Zur.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Bacillus licheniformis / metabolism*
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism*
  • Hydrogen Peroxide / metabolism
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Multigene Family
  • Oxidation-Reduction
  • Repressor Proteins / metabolism
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid*
  • Zinc / metabolism

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Repressor Proteins
  • Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Zinc

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, www.nrf.re.kr) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) [NRF-2011-0017199 and NRF-2009-0068133] and by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning [2015M3C8A6A06012737].