Identification and characterization of BrxR as a regulatory gene in the BREX phage restriction system

Abstract

Bacteriophage exclusion (‘BREX’) phage restriction systems are found in a wide range of bacteria. Various BREX systems encode unique combinations of proteins that usually include a site-specific methyltransferase; none appear to contain a nuclease. Here we describe the identification and characterization of a Type I BREX system from Acinetobacter and the effect of deleting each BREX ORF on growth, methylation and phage restriction. The analysis identified a previously uncharacterized gene at the 5’ end of the BREX operon that is dispensable for methylation but involved in restriction. Biochemical and crystallographic analyses of this factor, which we term BrxR (‘BREX Regulator’), demonstrate that it forms a homodimer and specifically binds a pseudo-palindromic DNA target site upstream of its transcription start site. Precise deletion of the BrxR gene causes cell toxicity, reduces phage restriction, and significantly increases the expression of BrxC. In contrast, the introduction of a premature stop codon into the BrxR gene has little effect, implying that the BrxR coding sequence and BrxR protein have independent functional roles in BREX regulation. We speculate that the BrxR coding sequence is involved in cis regulation of BREX activity and that the BrxR protein may play an additional regulatory role, perhaps during horizontal transfer of the system.