1. Characterization of <scp>PfiT</scp> / <scp>PfiA</scp> toxin–antitoxin system of <scp> Pseudomonas aeruginosa </scp> that affects cell elongation and prophage induction
- Author
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Sivan Shoshani, Ehud Banin, Amos Danielli, Irit Shoval, Yossi Ben-David, Shira Roth, Itzhak Zander, and Ester Shmidov
- Subjects
0303 health sciences ,030306 microbiology ,Toxin ,Operon ,Pseudomonas aeruginosa ,Biology ,Toxin-antitoxin system ,medicine.disease_cause ,Microbiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,medicine ,Antitoxin ,Gene ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Prophage ,Function (biology) ,030304 developmental biology - Abstract
Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are small genetic modules usually consisting of two elements-a toxin and an antitoxin. The abundance of TA systems among various bacterial strains may indicate an important evolutionary role. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can be found in a variety of niches in nature, is an opportunistic pathogen for various hosts. While P. aeruginosa strains are very versatile and diverse, only a few TA systems were characterized in this species. Here, we describe a newly characterized TA system in P. aeruginosa that is encoded within the filamentous Pf4 prophage. This system, named PfiT/PfiA, is a homologue of the ParE/YefM TA system. It is a type II TA system, in which the antitoxin is a protein that binds the toxic protein and eliminates the toxic effect. PfiT/PfiA carries several typical type II characteristics. Specifically, it constitutes two small genes expressed in a single operon, PfiT inhibits growth and PfiA eliminates this effect, PfiA binds PfiT, and PfiT expression results in elongated cells. Finally, we assigned a novel function to this TA system, where an imbalance between PfiT and PfiA, favouring the toxin, resulted in cell elongation and an increase in virion production.
- Published
- 2020
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