Affiliation:
1. Department of Environmental Microbiology/Genetics, University of Technology, D-10587 Berlin, Germany
2. Institute for Chemistry, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Plasmid pIP501 has a very broad host range for conjugative transfer among a wide variety of gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative
Escherichia coli
. Functionality of the pIP501 transfer (
tra
) genes in
E. coli
was proven by pIP501 retrotransfer to
Enterococcus faecalis
(B. Kurenbach, C. Bohn, J. Prabhu, M. Abudukerim, U. Szewzyk, and E. Grohmann, Plasmid
50:
86-93, 2003). The 15 pIP501
tra
genes are organized in a single operon (B. Kurenbach, J. Kopeć, M. Mägdefrau, K. Andreas, W. Keller, C. Bohn, M. Y. Abajy, and E. Grohmann, Microbiology
152:
637-645, 2006). The pIP501
tra
operon is negatively autoregulated at the transcriptional level by the conjugative DNA relaxase TraA. Three of the 15 pIP501-encoded Tra proteins show significant sequence similarity to the
Agrobacterium
type IV secretion system proteins VirB1, VirB4, and VirD4. Here we report a comprehensive protein-protein interaction map of all of the pIP501-encoded Tra proteins determined by the yeast two-hybrid assay. Most of the interactions were verified in vitro by isolation of the protein complexes with pull-down assays. In conjunction with known or postulated functions of the pIP501-encoded Tra proteins and computer-assisted prediction of their cellular location, we propose a model for the first type IV-secretion-like system encoded by a conjugative plasmid from gram-positive bacteria.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
97 articles.
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