BioProject

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a pathogen of global importance, utilizes the ESX-1 protein secretion system to export virulence factors that disarm host macrophages. More...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a pathogen of global importance, utilizes the ESX-1 protein secretion system to export virulence factors that disarm host macrophages. Although this secretory pathway is critical for virulence, how ESX-1 is regulated is completely unknown. Here we show that EspR (Rv3849) is a key regulator of ESX-1. EspR activates transcription of an operon that includes three ESX-1 components, Rv3616c-Rv3614c, whose expression in turn promotes secretion of ESX-1 substrates. Keywords: Strain comparison Overall design: Comparison of the global gene expression of the following M.tb strains grown in log phase: Erdman strain of M.tb (WT), espR transposon mutant (R-), the espR transposon mutant complemented with the espR gene (R+), the espR mutant (R-) complemented with an espR gene containing an R8A amino acid subsitution (R- R8A), the espR mutant (R-) complemented with an espR gene containing an R21A amino acid subsitution (R- R21A), espR mutant (R-) complemented with an espR gene containing a C-terminal 10-amino acid truncation (R- delta10), and the espR mutant (R-) complemented with an espR gene containing a C-terminal 5-amino acid truncation (R- delta5). Less...