A Two-Component Regulatory System Controls Autoregulated Serpin Expression in Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003
ABSTRACTThis work reports on the identification and molecular characterization of a two-component regulatory system (2CRS), encoded byserRK, which is believed to control the expression of theser2003locus inBifidobacterium breveUCC2003. Theser2003locus consists of two genes, Bbr_1319 (sagA) and Bbr_1320 (serU), which are predicted to encode a hypothetical membrane-associated protein and a serpin-like protein, respectively. The response regulator SerR was shown to bind to the promoter region ofser2003, and the probable recognition sequence of SerR was determined by a combinatorial approach ofin vitrosite-directed mutagenesis coupled to transcriptional fusion and electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs). The importance of theserRK2CRS in the response ofB. breveto protease-mediated induction was confirmed by generating aB. breve serRinsertion mutant, which was shown to exhibit alteredser2003transcriptional induction patterns compared to the parent strain, UCC2003. Interestingly, the analysis of aB. breve serUmutant revealed that the SerRK signaling pathway appears to include a SerU-dependent autoregulatory loop.