The Flag-2 Locus, an Ancestral Gene Cluster, Is Potentially Associated with a Novel Flagellar System from Escherichia coli

Abstract

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli K-12 possesses two adjacent, divergent, promoterless flagellar genes, fhiA - mbhA , that are absent from Salmonella enterica . Through bioinformatics analysis, we found that these genes are remnants of an ancestral 44-gene cluster and are capable of encoding a novel flagellar system, Flag-2. In enteroaggregative E. coli strain 042, there is a frameshift in lfgC that is likely to have inactivated the system in this strain. Tiling path PCR studies showed that the Flag-2 cluster is present in 15 of 72 of the well-characterized ECOR strains. The Flag-2 system resembles the lateral flagellar systems of Aeromonas and Vibrio , particularly in its apparent dependence on RpoN. Unlike the conventional Flag-1 flagellin, the Flag-2 flagellin shows a remarkable lack of sequence polymorphism. The Flag-2 gene cluster encodes a flagellar type III secretion system (including a dedicated flagellar sigma-antisigma combination), thus raising the number of distinct type III secretion systems in Escherichia / Shigella to five. The presence of the Flag-2 cluster at identical sites in E. coli and its close relative Citrobacter rodentium , combined with its absence from S. enterica , suggests that it was acquired by horizontal gene transfer after the former two species diverged from Salmonella . The presence of Flag-2-like gene clusters in Yersinia pestis , Yersinia pseudotuberculosis , and Chromobacterium violaceum suggests that coexistence of two flagellar systems within the same species is more common than previously suspected. The fact that the Flag-2 gene cluster was not discovered in the first 10 Escherichia / Shigella genome sequences studied emphasizes the importance of maintaining an energetic program of genome sequencing for this important taxonomic group.