title: Borrelia burgdorferi EbfC defines a newly-identified, widespread family of bacterial DNA-binding proteins.
abstract: The Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, encodes a novel type of DNA-binding protein named EbfC. Orthologs of EbfC are encoded by a wide range of bacterial species, so characterization of the borrelial protein has implications that span the eubacterial kingdom. The present work defines the DNA sequence required for high-affinity binding by EbfC to be the 4 bp broken palindrome GTnAC, where 'n' can be any nucleotide. Two high-affinity EbfC-binding sites are located immediately 5' of B. burgdorferi erp transcriptional promoters, and binding of EbfC was found to alter the conformation of erp promoter DNA. Consensus EbfC-binding sites are abundantly distributed throughout the B. burgdorferi genome, occurring approximately once every 1 kb. These and other features of EbfC suggest that this small protein and its orthologs may represent a distinctive type of bacterial nucleoid-associated protein. EbfC was shown to bind DNA as a homodimer, and site-directed mutagenesis studies indicated that EbfC and its orthologs appear to bind DNA via a novel alpha-helical 'tweezer'-like structure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY 40536-0298, USA.
authors.forename: Sean P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Riley
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bykowski
authors.forename: Anne E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Cooley
authors.forename: Logan H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Babb
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Brissette
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bowman
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rotondi
authors.forename: M Clarke
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: DeMoll
authors.forename: Kap
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Fried
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stevenson
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D025065:Borrelia burgdorferi / Q000235:genetics*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009875:Operator Regions, Genetic; D011485:Protein Binding; D055503:Protein Multimerization; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins