Affiliation:
1. Department of Microbiology, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Klebsiella pneumoniae
is an opportunistic pathogen that has been shown to adhere to human extracellular matrices using the type 3 fimbriae. Introduction of plasmids carrying genes known to alter intracellular cyclic-di-GMP pools in
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
revealed that these genes also altered type 3 fimbrial surface expression in
K. pneumoniae
. Immediately adjacent to the type 3 fimbrial gene cluster is a gene,
mrkJ
, that is related to a family of bacterial genes encoding phosphodiesterases. We identify here a role for MrkJ, a functional phosphodiesterase exhibiting homology to EAL domain-containing proteins, in controlling type 3 fimbria production and biofilm formation in
K. pneumoniae
. Deletion of
mrkJ
resulted in an increase in type 3 fimbria production and biofilm formation as a result of the accumulation of intracellular cyclic-di-GMP. This gene was shown to encode a functional phosphodiesterase via restoration of motility in a
V. parahaemolyticus
strain previously shown to accumulate cyclic-di-GMP and
in vitro
using phosphodiesterase activity assays. The effect of the
mrkJ
mutation on type 3 fimbrial expression was shown to be at the level of
mrkA
gene transcription by using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. These results reveal a previously unknown role for cyclic-di-GMP in type 3 fimbrial production.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
56 articles.
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