title: Roles of the Tn21 merT, merP, and merC gene products in mercury resistance and mercury binding.
abstract: The mercury resistance (mer) operon of the gram-negative transposon Tn21 encodes not only a mercuric reductase and regulatory genes but also two inner membrane proteins (MerT and MerC) and a periplasmic protein (MerP). Although the merT, merP, and merC genes have been implicated in Hg(II) transport, the individual roles of these genes have not been established. We created in vitro precise deletion and frameshift mutations that eliminated each of the genes singly and in combination. Our results show that both merT and merP are required for Hg(II) binding but that merC is not. Both merT and merP are required for full expression of Hg(II) resistance, but loss of merP is less deleterious than loss of merT. Furthermore, mutations eliminating both merT and merP decrease resistance more than the single mutations do. In contrast, mutating merC had no effect on Hg(II) resistance. Both the merT and merP mutations increase the threshold Hg(II) concentration for induction of merA-lacZ transcriptional fusions and cause an increase in the maximal expression level. In contrast, the merC mutation had little effect on the threshold inducing concentration of Hg(II) but decreased the level of expression. Our results show that merT and merP alone are sufficient to specify a mercury transport system. The role of merC remains obscure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania 19081.
authors.forename: N V
authors.initials: NV
authors.lastname: Hamlett
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Landale
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: A O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Summers
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D027682:Cation Transport Proteins; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial / Q000235:genetics*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D008628:Mercury / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009876:Operon / Q000235:genetics; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D027682:Cation Transport Proteins; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; C072715:merC protein, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans; D008628:Mercury