Autoregulation of the Escherichia coli heat shock response by the DnaK and DnaJ heat shock proteins

All organisms respond to various forms of stress, including heat shock. The heat shock response has been universally conserved from bacteria to humans. In Escherichia coli the heat shock response is under the positive transcriptional control of the sigma 32 polypeptide and involves transient acceleration in the rate of synthesis of a few dozen genes. Three of the heat shock genes--dnaK, dnaJ, and grpE--are special because mutations in any one of these lead to constitutive levels of heat shock gene expression, implying that their products negatively autoregulate their own synthesis. The DnaK, DnaJ, and GrpE proteins have been known to function in various biological situations, including bacteriophage lambda replication. Here, we report the formation of an ATP hydrolysis-dependent complex of DnaJ, sigma 32, and DnaK proteins in vitro. This DnaJ-sigma 32-DnaK complex has been seen under different conditions, including glycerol gradient sedimentation and co-immunoprecipitation. The DnaK and DnaJ proteins in the presence of ATP can interfere with the efficient binding of sigma 32 to the RNA polymerase core, and are capable of disrupting a preexisting sigma 32-RNA polymerase complex. Our results suggest a possible mechanism for the autoregulation of the heat shock response.