This work investigated the role of rpoS in the development of increased cell envelope resilience and enhanced pressure resistance in stationary-phase cells of Escherichia coli. Loss of both colony-forming ability and membrane integrity, measured as uptake of propidium iodide (PI), occurred at lower pressures in E. coli BW3709 (rpoS) than in the parental strain (BW2952). The rpoS mutant also rel...

Escherichia coli O111 is an emerging non-O157:H7 serotype of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). We previously reported that outbreak and environmental, but not sporadic-case, strains of STEC O111 share a distinct aggregation phenotype (M. E. Diodati, A. H. Bates, M. B. Cooley, S. Walker, R. E. Mandrell, and M. T. Brandl, Foodborne Pathog Dis 12:235-243, 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/fpd.20...

Although it is well recognized that bacteria respond to environmental stress through global networks, the mechanism by which stress is relayed to the interior of the cell is poorly understood. Here we show that enigmatic toxin-antitoxin systems are vital in mediating the environmental stress response. Specifically, the antitoxin MqsA represses rpoS, which encodes the master regulator of stress....

We isolated an Escherichia coli mutant in the iraD gene, sensitive to various forms of DNA damage. Our data are consistent with the function of IraD to promote accumulation of the alternative transcription sigma factor, RpoS, by binding to the adaptor RssB protein that targets RpoS for degradation. Our results demonstrate the physiological importance of this mode of regulation for DNA damage to...

In batch cultures of Escherichia coli, the intracellular concentration of the general stress response sigma factor RpoS typically increases during the transition from the exponential to the stationary growth phase. However, because this transition is accompanied by complex physico-chemical and biological changes, which signals predominantly elicit this induction is still the subject of debate. ...

RpoS, one of the two alternative σ factors in Borrelia burgdorferi, is tightly controlled by multiple regulators and, in turn, determines expression of many critical virulence factors. Here we show that increasing RpoS expression causes cell death. The immediate effect of increasing RpoS expression was to promote bacterial division and as a consequence result in a rapid increase in cell number ...

Salmonella plasmid virulence (spv) genes are organized into two transcriptional units: one formed by the spvR gene and the other by the spvA, spvB, spvC and spvD genes. Transcription of both units is activated by SpvR, a regulatory protein of the LysR family. The effect of RpoS, a stationary phase-associated sigma factor, on the expression of spv genes was studied using lacZ transcriptional fus...

RpoS and RpoN are two alternative sigma factors typically associated with general stress responses in bacteria. To date, there has been no experimental evidence that RpoS and RpoN can directly control the expression of one another. Herein, using a combined strategy of gene disruption and genetic complementation targeting rpoN and rpoS in Borrelia burgdorferi strain 297, we describe a regulatory...

Escherichia coli and related enteric bacteria can survive under extreme acid stress condition at least for several hours. RpoS is a key factor for acid stress management in many enterobacteria. Although three rpoS-activating sRNAs, DsrA, RprA, and ArcZ, have been identified in E. coli, it remains unclear how these small RNA molecules participate in pathways leading to acid resistance (AR). Here...

The Sm-like protein Hfq (host factor Q-beta phage) facilitates regulation by bacterial small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs) in response to stress and other environmental signals. Here, we present a low-resolution model of Escherichia coli Hfq bound to the rpoS mRNA, a bacterial stress response gene that is targeted by three different sRNAs. Selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation and primer extension, small-an...