BsaN together with chaperone BicA directly activate T3SS3 effector and T6SS1 regulatory genes We have previously shown that expression of the two component regulatory system virAG and the genes from BPSS1520 (bprC) to BPSS1533 (bicA) in the T3SS3 cluster were regulated by BsaN in concert with the chaperone BicA [14]. To determine whether BsaN/BicA activate these genes directly, bsaN and bicA open reading frames (orfs) from B. pseudomallei strain KHW were inserted into a plasmid downstream of an arabinose-inducible promoter on pMLBAD [24]. These constructs were introduced into E. coli DH5α [25] along

with an additional construct containing putative promoter regions of several BsaN target genes transcriptionally fused to lacZ on pRW50 [26] or pRW50mob, which contains the oriT fragment for pOT182 [27]. The effect of BsaN/BicA on promoter activity was then assessed by β-galactosidase activities. The putative bsaN Selleckchem GSK690693 Tozasertib supplier orf is annotated in the B. pseudomallei

genome database to initiate from a GTG start codon [28]. We identified a second potential start codon (ATG) and ribosome binding site 117 nucleotides (nt) upstream of GTG (Figure 2A, B). bsaN/bicA expression constructs (Figure 2A) that were initiated from GTG were unable to activate transcription of bicA, bopA and bopE in E. coli (Additional file 1: Table S2), supporting the selleckchem notion that the ATG was the actual start codon for BsaN. Furthermore, a transcriptional start site was

identified 56 nucleotide upstream of the ATG codon via RNA ligase-mediated rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RLM-RACE) (Figure 2B). A putative Ribosomal Binding Site (RBS) is located in front of the ATG Farnesyltransferase condon. Replacing the GTG-initiated bsaN orf with the longer version containing the ATG start site resulted in activation of the bicA, bopA and bopE promoters as well as those for BPSS1521 (bprD), BPSS 1495 (virA) and the putative transposase BPSS1518 (Figure 3A-F). Expression of BsaN alone was not sufficient to activate these promoters (Additional file 1: Table S2), demonstrating the co-requirement for BicA. No apparent BsaN/BicA-dependent promoter activity was obtained for BPSS1528 (bapA), BPSS1523 (bicP), BPSS1530 (bprA), or BPSS1520 (bprC) (Additional file 1: Table S2) (refer to Figure 2C for gene location). Furthermore, BsaN/BicA could not activate transcription of a BPSS1512 (tssM)-lacZ fusion in E. coli (Figure 3G). Thus, BsaN/BicA drives the expression of bprDC and the BPSS1518-1516 operons directly, whereas bicP and bprB gene expression is likely driven by the upstream-located bopA promoter. Transcription of the bapABC and bprA genes could be driven from the bicA promoter. Collectively, these results are represented in Figure 2C where the five validated promoters and operon structures controlled directly by BsaN/BicA are depicted by black solid line arrows.