title: The Hha protein facilitates incorporation of horizontally acquired DNA in enteric bacteria.
abstract: Hha-like proteins are an evolutive trait of members of the family Enterobacteriaceae. These proteins mimic the oligomerization domain of the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS and interact with this latter protein to modulate gene expression. In this report, we provide evidence that, as has been shown for H-NS, Hha-like proteins play an essential role facilitating acquisition of horizontally transferred DNA in both Escherichia coli and Salmonella. Incorporation of conjugative plasmids such as pHly152 or R27 results in a fitness cost in E. coli or Salmonella strains that lack Hha-like proteins. E. coli spontaneous derivatives from double hha ydgT mutants that showed an increased growth rate and a restored fitness overexpressed the H-NS protein. In addition to reinforcing the role of H-NS/Hha-modulating xenogeneic DNA, the results obtained demonstrate that the Enterobacteriaceae display regulatory features not found in other bacteria that facilitate incorporation of horizontally transferred DNA.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aznar
authors.affiliation: Departament de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paytubi
authors.affiliation: Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC), Baldiri i Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.|Departament de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Juárez
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D055786:Gene Knockout Techniques; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D010957:Plasmids; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012475:Salmonella / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; C031908:H-NS protein, bacteria